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The artist, who still believes that “Barbie dolls are devil spawn,” grew up in “a nice, neat suburban home with nice, neat wallpaper and nice, neat emotions.” Yet, Lipton makes a living creating images that are anything but nice and neat—her pieces are often macabre and dark in tone.

Lipton began specializing in charcoal and pencil art while studying abroad in her junior year at Carnegie-Mellon University, where she became the first person to receive a Fine Arts degree in Drawing. “I was a poor student and it was the cheapest and most convenient mode of self- expression,” she says. “Then I saw the photographs created by Diane Arbus and decided that black and white were the colors I wanted to work with.

Inspired by “everything”—Lipton says she sees images in her head “like a slide projector.” “My emotions stir my imagination and my imagery too…I'm never bored,” she explains.

Her many inspirations are evident in her eclectic collection of work, which range from images of eerily perfect 50’s housewives (see “On”), to ghostly family funerals (see “Reunion”). Lipton even depicts a church filled with lowly skeletons using impressive detail in “Resurgam."

Lipton’s immaculate attention to detail, although time consuming, comes from her passion for the work. “A drawing takes me as long as it takes,” she says. “I try not to notice how long… most times [the drawings] sweep me into them and I can't escape until they're done. They excite me. I can't wait to get at them. My idea of sheer bliss is drawing all day.”