There was a time when I lost my mind.
That’s the opening sentence to The Art of Isolation, a collection of short stories and paintings by longtime Three Rivers resident Lisa Lieberman. It’s her first book, a sort of reminiscence on her life and our times. It’s her journey, how she went over the edge and how she came back. Mostly, it’s about how that unintended and unexpected journey changed the author forever.
The work is a bit of an accident by way of procrastination. Or perhaps it was a cleaning of the palette. In any case, Lieberman says she didn’t intend to write a book, at least not this one. She had another in mind, one that had loomed for years in the background of her life but refused to let itself be written.
“I was avoiding writing the other book and ended up writing this other one,” she said. “I didn’t intend for it to be a book.”
Yet here we are.
The Public is Cordially Welcome…
A collection of Leiberman’s short-form writing and artwork, the Art of Isolation is a blending of her recent literary efforts interspersed with haunting paintings she created, and the public is invited to get a first look at the coffee table-size book at 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, October 11 at the Cort Gallery, 41881 Sierra Drive in Three Rivers.
The evening will feature a reading by Lieberman, a showing of her paintings, as well as live music by Slick Rock Slim and refreshments.
Lieberman began her writing career at the former Kaweah Commonwealth in Three Rivers known at the time as Sequoia Sentinel, and for 17 years authored the column “Life in a Small Town” for the Valley Voice. Her work has also appeared in the Fresno Bee, the Visalia Times Delta, The Business Journal in Fresno, and the San Francisco Examiner, along with numerous statewide and national publications.
The Art of Isolation follows and builds upon her body of introspective essays. Yet Lieberman’s more recent output is revealing of deeper musings, she says. It touches new subjects and does so deeply.
“It really is more of a sort of expansion of the columns I used to write,” she said. “But it’s a bit more personal.”
Ultimately, it’s a work about personal change over the course of her lifetime so far. The book’s title – specifically how Lieberman came up with it – is revealing of what readers might expect.
“I think I came up with that title because I was married. I went to the dentist one day and never came home,” she said. “That’s where the book starts. It’s the start of a transformation, kind of a journey.”
There and Back Again
Lieberman’s life journey began with her childhood in Chicago, shifted to an unhappy time as a teenager in New Orleans – “I moved there at 14, and didn’t like it,” she said – and continued at Cal in Berkeley where she took a degree in English. Then after graduation, she found herself without a purpose.
“I didn’t know what to do with my life, so I got a job driving a bus. I crashed the bus on the first day and got fired,” she said. “I took the next job I could, which was teaching English in Istanbul, Turkey. And that led to a lot of things.”
It eventually led to a life of 33 years so far in Three Rivers, a career as a freelance writer, a marriage gone wrong, and a strong recovery from the depths where life sometimes strands us. The Art of Isolation is about searching for and finding inner peace on your own.
“It’s about learning to live alone in a healthy way,” Lieberman said. “It’s about integrating big events, like divorce and the pandemic. It’s about travel and what you get in the end, a rounding out of the self.”
And, of course, Lieberman is subject to the undeniable urge that most, if not all, writers know too well.
“Something builds up inside you and you have to get it out,” she said. “It’s not a choice. It’s like a compulsion. You have to get it out.”
This time, however, words alone weren’t enough. Images too invoke the emotions and states of mind Lieberman hopes to communicate to the world. She hopes the combination will add layers of meaning neither form can convey alone.
“What’s different about this is that I started painting. This is sort of like when you’re a kid and there’s a picture at the end,” Lieberman said. “The picture sort of reinforces what the story is about. In the end what I wanted to come out with was a coffee table book. It’s sort of like a picture book for adults.”
And there is another universal human trait at work. Lieberman’s life, as is true for all of us, has been a series of interwoven narratives. Those narratives, our stories, only become clear as we look back on them. Not all of us, however, feel compelled to share those personal tales.
“I think I’m just a storyteller at heart,” Lieberman said. “These are just stories that kind of just come to me. It comes from moving around a lot when I was kid. I didn’t have a lot of friends. Writing has always been my go-to. But it’s not all meant to be cathartic. I think I have a voice I want to share with people, and I think I have a voice people want to hear.”