Artist spotlight: Lisa Hoke

Tucked away within the walls of the historic Sarasota High School building, artist Lisa Hoke sits in a kaleidoscopic sprawl of cardboard boxes. Armed with a drill, a hot glue gun and a team of box cutter-wielding volunteers, she’s transforming one of the classrooms into a larger-than-life work of art as the 2014 ARTmuse artist. ARTmuse is an annual program that brings artists to Sarasota to help preview what the building will be like when it eventually opens as the Sarasota Museum of Art.

Hoke layers hundreds of color-coordinated pieces of cardboard along the walls to create a sweeping, three-dimensional sculpture. By collecting and reusing recyclable material, she says she finds added meaning in each of her one-of-a-kind works.

“It seems as though now, every time something breaks, we just buy something new,” she says. “I really have never adjusted well to that way of living. I think that makes us too casual with the luxuries we have in our lives. If anything, what I hope when people come and look at the work is that they slow down enough to see that these really memorable, beautiful things pass through their lives every day.”