Vintage and fairy might not often get used in the same sentence. Nor FBI agent and glitter, mortgage banking and making dolls, rejection and book deal. But pretty much anything about the lovely Lisa Kettell of Hackettstown, NJ is a study in contrasts.
With the publication of her Altered Art Circus (128 pages, Quarry Books, ISBN- 10-1592534872 ISBN-13: 978-1592534876) looming in early 2009, Lisa has achieved a dream that many of her art friends can only fantasize about.

But before that dream came to fruition, Lisa was busy orchestrating many of her other art dreams, instead of waiting for some fairy godmother to arrive. She’s organized; she’s driven, and like many of us here, she sees the beauty in something old, something cast off, making something new out of something from a childhood memory. (Lisa and the Mushroom, The Faerie Festival, Glenn Rock, PA May 2007)
Lisa did get support early on from her mother and continues to do so. Creating since she could hold a pencil, she says, earned her more praise than scolding, even when she drew big moon faces on the wall in crayon. She painted dolls and made doll clothes, even from young-child kits whose needles were plastic. She threw herself into Girl Scout crafts. She even admits now with a laugh that what she thought were the greatest handmade gifts she could ever present to friends in grade school were possibly actually “horrible.”
Although she took drawing in high school and also enjoyed collage even then, she says she lost a lot of her creating time and interest after high school. And although she started out as an art major in college, she quickly gave it up for what she perceived would be a faster or better road to income and moved into political science and government, imaging herself becoming an FBI agent.
From there, a severe accident and the death of her grandmother with whom she was very close prompted her to take art classes to work through the physical and emotional pain. “It’s the best thing I’ve ever done,” she says, not surprisingly.

So while she worked in mortgage banking and real estate for 10 years, she also dove back into her art. Seven years ago she self-published a self-illustrated children’s book, Star and the Milky Way Café. (I first met Lisa when I bought a signed copy from her on ebay a couple years ago!)
The brightly-colored children’s tale, which she is now giving an update and working on getting professionally-published in hardcover, is a tribute of sorts, via color, to the artist with whom she has been enamored since high school, Mary Engelbreit.
Lisa had the good fortune to meet her mentor several years ago at a book signing in New York and will once again see Mary this month on Lisa’s own birthday at Silver Bella, a gathering of artists in Omaha, NB organized by Teresa McFayden. Lisa will be a vendor and offer a pay and play at her booth, and Mary Engelbreit is the keynote speaker for the sold-out event.
After her foray into illustration, Lisa says she “wasn’t satisfied, wasn’t complete” and moved into making art cards and altered books. You can see from her project photos here and on Flickr and on her blog and Web site that she favors vintage items such as old dolls, jars, circus memorabilia, old ads and labels, but she gives them all her signature embellishments of glitter, crepe paper, a bit of fantasy and mystery (a la pixies, fairies, gnomes and other imagined creatures), bright colors and a smile. (The Pixie Boutique, ATC and Pocket below)