(Lise Hoffman-McCabe)

Lise Hoffman-McCabe is an award winning plein air pastel painter, founding partner of Red Chair Gallery and committed world traveler who is always looking for the next great subject to paint. She loves the plein air technique which requires painting quickly, as the light and weather conditions change as she paints. This method usually results in smaller pieces.

However, because she favors larger paintings she has found herself spending more time in her studio which allows her to do the 3’ x 4’ paintings that are more challenging.

When she is in her studio she can take advantage of a beautiful big window filled with light and a larger pallet with all her numerous pastels at her finger tips.

The daughter of an accomplished water color artist, Edna Hoffman, Lise wanted nothing to do with art while growing up. Although she never considered painting while her mother remained alive, after her mother passed she found she had a new curiosity involving painting.

Having given away all of her mother’s painting supplies and equipment, Lise suddenly became interested in a watercolor class offered at the Art Station. She then learned what had so interested her mother in painting; the unique experience of creating a work of art was different than other experiences.
At about the same time, her artist friend returned all of her mom’s paint brushes. Lise was thrilled to get the brushes back as she felt she could get some of her mother’s creative energy from them.

She tried watercolor, then oil and other mediums, but it was pastel that stuck. It is the vibrancy of the colors that she loves.
She can create more drama, more peace or more of a mood with pastels than she can with other mediums. Among pastel artists she is known as a colorist, meaning she will push the color. For example, she might not be satisfied with the water being blue, she might want a bright aqua with maybe some lavender.

One of her early teachers, Stella Canfield, taught her to incorporate into her painting the happiness that life brings and the energy that you feel.

Lise is one of the original partners/owners of Red Chair Gallery in downtown Bend. In 2010 a group of artists were looking for a way to fill the niche that Mirror Pond Gallery had left when it closed. The group spent months working on a plan for a gallery and the plan that worked best was for six artists to become owners (ownership now includes Lise and three other of the original six).

Or, as she jokingly called it, we became the decision makers. They decided upon a model where the partners assumed the financial responsibility for the gallery and then give fellow artists the opportunity to sell their art by becoming working members. Recently, Lise reduced her percentage of ownership so that she and her husband are free to travel.

And travel she will. Lise and her husband have owned a small apartment in Paris for almost 14 years and are excited about staying in France for more than just a few weeks at a time. She intends for France to be the jumping off spot for the rest of the world, with a hiking trip to Austria coming up first. Of course, her pastels will go on every trip! Lise has found a plein air group in Paris to go out to paint with called Les Rats des Champs, association d’art nomade or in English, a nomadic art group. A pastel association called Art du Pastel en France has welcomed her as a member.

She will continue to show her work in Europe and the U.S. at Red Chair Gallery.