San Francisco illustrator and fine artist Lisa Congdon was raised in both upstate New York and Northern California where she grew to love the trees and animals that surrounded her. That love is now expressed through her paintings and drawings. Lisa is predominantly self taught and did not begin painting until she was 31 years old. She is also a prolific collector of old and unusual things and surrounds herself with these things in her home & studio. In 2010 she chronicled her collections in her Collection A Day 2010 Project. That project is now a book, published in March 2011. In 2012, Lisa engaged in another daily project called 365 Days of Hand Lettering. 100 of her hand lettered quotes from that project will be published by Chronicle Books in Spring of 2014.In addition to illustration, Lisa periodically shows her work in galleries around the country. In 2011, she had her first major solo show at Gallery Hijinks in San Francisco and was in her first museum show at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco. Lisa works in the Mission District of San Francisco, where she also lives with her partner, Clay Lauren Walsh, her 10 pound chihuahua, Wilfredo, and her two cats, Barry and Margaret. She's an avid cyclist and swimmer.To learn more about Lisa in her own words, listen to this podcast of Lisa's interview with Meighan O'Toole about her work & making art for a living. You can also read this interview with Lisa on The Great Discontent and view this short film about her artwork and life. http: //lisacongdon.com/