Lisa Bartlett

Lisa Bartlett
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'I hate that because it's not trash,' said Bartlett, who owns The Vintage Shop, which has locations at Ninth and Walnut streets. 'I mean, you're not going to throw away a 100-year-old doorknob.People hoard this stuff.They don't make things today like they used to.'

Bartlett might not see the crumbs of times past as trash, but she certainly breathes new life into the forgotten odds and ends.In addition to her entrepreneurial endeavors, Bartlett is an assemblage artist.

She takes seemingly unrelated pieces and patches them together in two-dimensional and three-dimensional forms.Select pieces of her work will be on display until the end of the month at Main Squeeze, where she is doing a show with fellow artist Jessie Lawson.

Some of her pieces are done on old cabinet doors, in which she's attached a ratty print.
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Bartlett, 43, received a bachelor's degree in fine arts from Columbia College in 1988 and worked as a graphic designer at KOMU-TV for 10 years.Bartlett said working at the television station was good experience for her.She did everything from vehicle design and set design to promotions.

But six years ago she decided to leave the broadcast business to chase her dreams of being an artist.

She intended to get an art studio together and start painting when she got sidetracked by some antiques auctions.

'I started buying all these treasures I thought I could use in my art,' she said.

But eventually she amassed more treasure than she could use and decided to get into the business of collecting and reselling antique and vintage items.She also hoped other artists would use her store as a place to find interesting touches for their pieces.

At her store on Walnut, Bartlett has christened about a fourth of her floor space to her own art studio.Take a step back there and you'll find a mismatched collection, from a faded and torn Ouija board to a hollowed out wooden clock.

Bartlett is concerned with the tendency of people to view all items as disposable.She said she likes the idea of finding new uses for parts thought of as being obsolete.

It was back in college when Bartlett did her first assemblage.
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Bartlett said that her art teacher, Ben Cameron, encouraged students to look for found objects to incorporate into their art.
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On one occasion, Bartlett said Cameron told everyone in her class to do a scavenger hunt for something unusual.
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Bartlett found a stuffed dolphin in her mother's basement and presented it to Cameron.
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Since stepping out from KOMU, Bartlett said she has been fortunate to find a network of other artists.She said a group of her friends get together occasionally, share a bottle of wine and work on art projects together.

'For me, art is almost a social affair,' she said.
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Bartlett said she hopes to eventually have a bigger space to do her art, and she also wants to start painting.

'Every piece of art I do is sort of an experiment,' she said. 'It's important for a lot of artists to have one medium to hone.