Floating Treasures #1 & Floating Treasures #2, (2021)

Materials: Relief mono-prints, 32" x 22"
Location at Summa Health: Wound Care Center, Waiting Room

About the Work

Part of Lisa M. Schonberg's Treasures portfolio, Floating Treasures #1 and Floating Treasures #2 reflect the artist’s deep fascination with the natural world, particularly water, its movement, and the delicate forms suspended within it. Schonberg, who describes herself as a "frustrated botanist," recalls that women of her generation were not often encouraged to pursue careers in the sciences. Instead, her artistic practice has become a means of studying and preserving the natural beauty that captivates her. 

Her work, often highly abstract, emerges from the intricate and labor-intensive processes of printmaking, where multiple techniques intersect to create richly textured, visually dynamic compositions. In Floating Treasures, Schonberg transforms the ephemeral into the enduring, drawing inspiration from delicate fragments gathered along the shores of both U.S. coasts and Florida, sea fans, corals, seaweed, and shell remnants. These organic relics, shaped by the ocean’s constant motion, become the foundation of her creative process, first translated into mylar stencils that preserve their intricate forms while allowing for artistic reinterpretation.

These stencils are then layered over backgrounds that evoke the ceaseless rhythms of the sea. Using laser-etched plexiglass plates, Schonberg generates undulating, wave-like currents that imbue the prints with a sense of movement and fluidity, mirroring the natural forces that shaped her collected objects. The meticulous process continues as she builds each composition through successive passes of ink in varying colors and intensities, allowing the interplay of transparency and opacity to create depth. The result is a series of monoprints that are singular in nature, each a distinct exploration of form, light, and texture rather than a replicated edition.

Through Floating Treasures and similar works, such as those displayed at the Barberton Campus Joint Center, Schonberg offers more than an aesthetic study of marine life; she presents a meditation on transformation, impermanence, and the delicate balance of nature’s cycles. Her prints capture the beauty of fleeting moments; waves shifting, objects drifting, ecosystems evolving, preserving them in layered, abstracted imagery that invites reflection on the ever-changing world around us.

Sensibilis Dance, Philodendron Twirl, Winter Horsetails Sweep (2020)

Materials: Cyanotypes, 24" x 18"
Location at Summa Health: Wound Care Center

About the Art

Lisa M. Schonberg is an artist drawn to blue, a color she describes as evoking calm, peacefulness, and stability. “Blue is a color I have gravitated to all my life,” she says. The works in the Summa Collection highlight the depth and resonance of her blues, achieved through various printmaking processes that reflect her expansive approach to the medium.

These three cyanotypes; Sensibilis Dance, Philodendron Twirl, Winter Horsetails Sweep, capture nature in motion, distilled into striking monochromatic compositions. During the isolation of the pandemic, Schonberg turned to this alternative photographic technique, which involves placing objects on paper treated with light-sensitive chemicals. When exposed to ultraviolet light, the uncovered areas develop a deep Prussian blue, while the blocked areas remain untouched, creating high-contrast silhouettes. 

In Sensibilis Dance, the artist orchestrates a rhythmic composition of Sensitive Ferns, carefully arranged to evoke both movement and harmony. Collected from her walks through the woods, the leaves, spores, and roots become more than botanical specimens, they are transformed into expressive elements that seem to sway and intertwine, mirroring the natural dance of flora in the breeze.

The interplay of light and shadow plays a crucial role in the composition, as the artist captures the delicate variations in tone that arise from the ferns’ interaction with the printing surface. The varying shades of blue are not merely aesthetic choices; they reveal subtle nuances in form, highlighting where leaves lifted slightly, allowing light to filter through. This effect enhances the sense of depth and dimension, making the ferns appear almost suspended in space, as if caught in a fleeting moment of motion.

Beyond its visual appeal, Sensibilis Dance is a meditation on nature’s quiet rhythms and fleeting beauty. The layering of organic shapes suggests cycles of growth, decay, and renewal, inviting the viewer to contemplate the passage of time within the natural world. Through her use of abstraction and meticulous printmaking techniques, the artist transforms an intimate, personal encounter with the forest into a dynamic, immersive experience, one that captures the essence of nature’s delicate yet enduring presence.

Philodendron Twirl offers an intricate and intimate portrayal of the common Philodendron scandens, elevating this familiar houseplant into a mesmerizing study of movement, form, and organic complexity. Rather than simply depicting the plant’s characteristic heart-shaped leaves, the artist expands the focus to include the delicate tendrils of its roots and the fragile emergence of seedlings. These elements, often overlooked, become central to the composition, emphasizing the plant’s continuous cycle of growth and regeneration.

The twisting, curling forms of the philodendron appear to float and swirl across the surface, as if caught in a gentle current of air or water. This sense of fluidity is enhanced by the artist’s careful attention to negative space, allowing the organic shapes to breathe and unfurl naturally. The rhythmic interplay between stems, roots, and leaves creates a dynamic, almost dance-like composition that captures the inherent grace of plant life.

Through Philodendron Twirl, the artist not only showcases the beauty of a common botanical subject but also invites deeper reflection on the unseen vitality and resilience of nature. The inclusion of seedlings underscores the perpetual cycle of growth, while the delicate root structures hint at the unseen networks that sustain life. This work is a testament to both the plant’s quiet elegance and the artist’s keen observational skill, transforming a familiar species into a captivating, almost ethereal presence.

Winter Horsetails Sweep transforms a familiar North American plant, also known as Scouring Rush, into an abstracted study of structure and movement. The bold, rugged stems fan across the composition, contrasted by delicate, wispy “tails” bursting from their tips, an exploration of balance between strength and fragility. 

Schonberg’s engagement with cyanotype; a process pioneered by 19th-century British botanist and photographer Anna Atkins, led her to teach workshops, including virtual sessions during the pandemic. Her work is part of a broader artistic response to the uncertainty of that time, as she and other artists in the Summa Collection, found inspiration and solace in the natural beauty of Northeast Ohio’s MetroParks.

Water Current Blue, Water Current, Wind Event

Materials: Two relief mono-prints on paper, 22" x 30"; pulp painting (center), 12.5" x 10"
Location at Summa Health: Barberton Joint Center of Excellence, hallway opposite nurses' station

About the Art

Lisa M. Schonberg’s Water Current Blue and Wind Event are relief monoprints flanking a smaller pulp painting, Water Current, in a striking triptych. These works share a rich blue palette, aligning visually with two additional sets of Schonberg’s work in the Summa Collection, located in the Wound Care Center.

The larger compositions are inspired by contemporary maps of ocean and lake currents, visualizations used by environmental scientists and navigators to track the movement of water and wind around the globe. Fascinated by these natural forces, Schonberg translated their fluid dynamics into print through a combination of laser etching and traditional relief techniques. The resulting works are essentially relief prints created from laser etched plexiglass plates, layered by flipping and reprinting the plate to build complexity. Her exploration of these methods was initially supported by a grant from the Ohio Arts Council, which enabled her to collaborate with the think[box] at Case Western Reserve University.

The central work, Water Current, emerged from Schonberg’s 2018 artist residency at the Morgan Conservatory, where she explored papermaking techniques. Seeking to create exceptionally thin, textured surfaces, she developed a process of spraying pulped paper through an atomizer onto a base sheet before layering in pigment. This technique results in one-of-a-kind compositions, much like her monoprints, where the traces of her process, sprayed fibers, layered pigment, and drawn marks, evoke a mesmerizing sense of motion. Whether recalling the movement of water, wind, or another elemental force, the piece invites viewers into a moment of quiet, meditative observation.

Meandering Memory (2020)

Materials: Pressure Print and Relief Monoprint (Triptych) on Mulberry Paper
Location at Summa Health: 75 Arch Suite 406, Waiting Room, Trauma

About the Art

In Meandering Memory, Lisa M. Schonberg captures the nuanced and layered experience of memory through a process-rich print that merges nature, emotion, and abstraction. Created during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, this triptych speaks to the artist’s longing for connection and empathy in a time of isolation. Employing a laser-etched plastic plate based on a linear wind map and pressure printing with botanical materials and a hand-cut stencil, Schonberg records both process and feeling in this multifaceted work.

The imagery: comprising wind, leaves, coral branches, and vines, serves as a symbolic language for personal moments and memories. These organic elements intertwine with abstract form to explore the fluid and fragmented nature of recollection. The print is sectioned vertically into a triptych, further emphasizing the idea of memory as something pieced together over time.

The use of Mulberry paper, known for its strength and delicacy, allows for the capture of fine textures while mirroring the emotional fragility of the moment in which the piece was created. Meandering Memory is not only a visual meditation on nature’s calming and mysterious qualities but also an emotional record of a time marked by distance and reflection.

Herbal Diffusion #4 (2019)

Materials: Monoprint
Location at Summa Health: 75 Arch Suite 406, Waiting Room, Trauma

About the Art

A lifelong gardener, hiker, and environmental enthusiast, Lisa M. Schonberg infuses Herbal Diffusion #4 with reverence for the healing power of the natural world. Part of a larger series of monoprints, this work reflects her deep respect for simple botanical forms and the visceral joy they can inspire. Using real plant materials like rosemary, sage, parsley, and other summer herbs, Schonberg printed in layered hues of blue and green, evoking both the visual beauty and the aromatic essence of the plants themselves.

The close-up composition invites viewers into an intimate encounter with nature, emphasizing not only its visual intricacy but also its emotional and spiritual resonance. Through this piece, Schonberg explores themes of human connection and disconnection from the natural world, portraying nature as both transient and eternal. The layered textures and life-size imprints of herbs suggest not only fragility but also resilience, echoing nature’s capacity to soothe, restore, and ground us.

Herbal Diffusion #4 serves as a meditative reminder of how immersive and healing our relationship with the earth can be when nurtured with time and attention.