Lissa Nilsson

Lissa Nilsson is originally from Michigan. She won several awards in high school art competitions, and started college as an Art Major. After deciding she didn’t want to starve, Nilsson went on to earn a BA in Geography from Mount Holyoke College.

Lissa had a successful 15-year career as a cartographer and Senior Geographic Analyst for NAVTEQ before losing her job due to chronic illness. She has been mostly housebound and operating at about 30% of her former self since becoming ill with ME/CFS in 2010. 

In 2015, some of Nilsson’s acrylics were selected for M.E. Again, an online, year-long, juried show featuring artists disabled with ME/CFS. Her painting, “Planet ME/CFS”, was also part of the 2018 show, Flourish, in the Amy E. Tarrant Gallery, at the Flynn Theatre in Burlington, VT. Lissa’s painting, “Untold Depths to Heights Unknown”, traveled Vermont statewide as part of the Inclusive Arts Vermont show, Anew, in 2020. Likewise, in 2022 Lissa’s “inVisible illness: Behind the Smile” was part of the IAV show Masked; and in 2024 her painting, “The Healing Tree: Heirs to Ancestral Trauma” was part of IAV’s Cycles exhibition.

In early 2017, Nilsson and her husband discovered that their dream property in Ferrisburgh, VT, was the stuff of nightmares. Their home was laden with toxic mold, hidden inside the walls. Unbeknownst to them, it had been the source of their sickness for the past seven years that they’d lived there. For nearly two years, they went through an excruciating saga trying to save themselves, and their house. Ultimately the remediation failed and they were forced to leave everything behind. 

In November of 2018, Nilsson and her husband, David Fontaine, hit the road with their two beloved cats. While continuing to maintain their VT residency through David’s work, they’ve been full-time RVing ever since - slowly regaining some of their health in small increments. It has been a long, slow, brutal road - full of switchbacks, dips, and fortunately some high points too. The ability to return to her roots in art has brought immense satisfaction and a sense of purpose to Lissa’s life.