April 6th Arts Marathon Post

Hello Friends,

While you have now had two little glimpses into some music in progress, today I want to share a new completely finished song that I have not shared with ANYONE ELSE BEFORE!!!! I wrote and recorded this last year, and have been slowly working on getting it mixed and mastered, and I finally got the mastered version yesterday so I can share it with YOU! This will be released as the B side on a 45 LP, so now my next job is to finish the graphics, cover art, and liner notes, and then send it off to the duplication place to get made into actual records! Eventually I will be releasing this to my mailing list and then the whole planet, but you are getting the very first listen. Don't tell my mailing list, they'll probably be a little hurt actually ;)

I have some questions for you- what should this LP be called? How upset would you be if the A side of this release sounded totally different and had a lot of distortion and swearing?

Finally, how much do you love the Community Asylum Seekers Project??? Please share this marathon with your friends and family, it's not too late for folks to sign up and donate!!
Thanks so much,

Lissa

PS Here are the details for the new track, in case you're curious:

"Allow Me To Mend" by Lissa Schneckenburger (vocals, tenor guitar) recorded and mixed by Garrett Cameron (vibraphone, drums) additional recording by Lissa Schneckenburger at Frost Place Studios, mastered by Toby Mountain.

April 12th Tour Post

Hello from the road!

I am traveling around playing northeast shows this weekend with Nic Gareiss (step dancing) and Garrett Cameron (vibraphone). I regret to say that time has slipped away from me and I have spent way more time rehearsing, driving to gigs, sound checking, performing, and meeting lots of lovely audiences in person this week than anticipated, and I have not had the chance to post until now. I am VERY excited to share a rehearsal video with you all from a few days ago, of one of the tunes that we worked up together. This is a tune that I previewed for you last week called First Light, that I learned from a band called The Shoats. Here's the spiffed up version, I hope you like it.

Thanks again for supporting CASP! More soon,

Lissa

April 15th Arts Marathon Post

Hello!
I'm here to share a little piece of last week's rehearsal with Garrett Cameron (vibraphone) and Nic Gareiss (foot percussion). We just finished a short tour around the northeast, and this was taken last week when we first got together to get ready and practice for the shows. This piece is a traditional song from Maine called The Irish Girl, which I recorded many years ago on my self titled album (available here, if you're curious). I hope you like it! :)
Lissa

Spring Studio Sketch, oil on paper 8"x10"

Thank you for sponsoring our Art Marathon supporting our local asylum seekers community through CASP, we are always stronger together.

Still Life, studio oil sketch on paper

Still Life, studio oil sketch on paper

Still lives make me feel a sense of home, something I wish for us all to feel.

The Workplace

Yesterday's photo showed “yours truly” just home from “work.”  Today's photo shows my current workplace, Green Mountain Orchards, in Putney, Vermont.  The crew starts pruning the orchard the first of January and is closing in on finishing in the next couple of weeks.

The ladder you see is 14 feet tall, the standard orchard ladder on the farm.  Trees are kept to a 14 foot height.  Pickers use the same length ladder.  In this block, the trees are planted 6 feet apart, about 100 trees per row.  An experienced pruner can prune an entire row in one day.

For the Gallery

My "textile art" projects use a series of small fabric scraps tacked to a canvas background, then hand-stitched with thousands of tiny stitches to create what looks more like a three-dimensional image. This is an example from my "botanical" series - of an imaginary Amaryllis.
Example of a finished piece: Amaryllis giselafantastica

Before cutting any fabrics for the portrait, I make a full-scale sketch of the idea that will be used as a pattern.
Full-scale sketch pattern for the portrait

After tacking the pieces of fabric in place, the final steps of making thousands of tiny stitches by hand with dozens of different colors of thread will bring the portrait to life.
The initial pieces of fabric for the piano and his suit are in place

April 14. Welcome to the Golden Age

Still in progress but the mood is increasingly dire

Steel Pan and Percussion Festival Illustration

This is partially inspired by the posters of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. The woman holds a Shekere and the man the Iron (Sometimes called a brake drum). It's a core time-keeper in steel pan ensembles.

This was drawn in ink with a brush, then detailed with colored pencils and acrylic paint. It's about 6" x 10"

Quilting through time

Quilts

I'm feeling so thankful that my sewing is improving a little. My skills are greatly diminished and I'll never get back what I had but what a balm the color is. And it doesn't interrupt me with a constant stream of broken thoughts. Just broken pieces of fabric that when they are pieced together the color splash is a warm hug for whoever is using it

With this fabric I am time traveling to my younger self as I cross-match scraps and incorporate a vision of who I was then and how much time has passed and how blown away I am by looking across the abyss of time and all of life's events since then.

I'm feeling super un-easy even while a new set of blocks emerges. It is a crazy quilt afterall. Everything looks completely different depending upon how you look at it.

I was incorporating a new set of crazy blocks into some I had made. The first rendition hurt my eyes to look at. It's a supercool beautiful porthole but the rest of the quilt is as crazy as living through the past week felt. People all over the world felt it. Believed it could happen in a way that has never been seen before. He'll love it. Holy crap.

But the forest…

 
Quilting through time

Tragedy of the most beautiful quilt

This set of squares was rescued from the beautiful quilt the dog ate.  It was was a replacement for for my eldest grand daughter's failed Impossible quilt, which in itself is an ongoing saga. And this radiant star... the dog ate it.
Tragedy of the most beautiful quilt

Look what came of all of these left over triangle squares. A much easier approach to my next scap quilt

April 7 - snow is back!

Southern Vermont is covered in snow again this morning. Over the last few months I've made 52 five inch flowery log cabin blocks. Originally for a specific purpose, they are now free agents. They are very cute but time-consuming and I don't know if I want to make more to be a quilt on their own. My thought now is to make an alternate leafy block.

April 13 - old project continued

Started sewing the project I planned ?? years ago. The design is based on a cornfield I saw in late autumn when the stalks were cut down. It will consist of a series of horizontal strips of descending heights, bottom to top.

Abstract Heart Mosaic

Hearts reflecting on love and peace.
Abstract Heart Mosaic with hand-cut stained glass tiles

Peace Dove

Pastel dove of peace spreading the colors of love and joy.
Pastel Peace Dove mixing pastels with emotions

Tiny Dancer

Dancing and moving with creativity
Tiny Dancer drawing with graphite, ink, colored pencils and markers

Day 9

Drawer contents and current reading. Things I've loved, and stashed away, and use everyday. Ink on paper 8.5"x11".

A lot of process, so far.  But these three feel ready for viewing.
Storm. 60 x 86 Acrylic on Canvas

All There Is. 25 x 36. Acrylic and plexiglas on Hardbord panel

(poem title TBD)

trash doesn’t pay for its portrait…

I paint it anyway,

capturing its hideousness

to place that on display

next to creations of beauty

to contrast all we make, 

mapping its insidiousness

with every stroke I take.

each canvas asks Earth’s fate. 

people won’t pay for such rubbish. 

I paint more every day,

practicing fastidiousness 

to back up all I say 

with all the latest of research

and data on our waste,

proving its insidiousness

in hope we change with haste. 

it isn’t yet too late…

(Photo taken in Medford, 12 April 2026)

portrait of perverse