By Kristin Rothwell, NurseZone feature writer

When Lisa Fittipaldi lost her eyesight almost 10 years ago, she discovered a new appreciation for art and a talent for painting brilliantly colored landscapes, street scenes and still life’s while relying solely on her "mind’s eye." In an exclusive NurseZone interview, Fittipaldi, former RN, MSN, shared the ups and downs of losing her sight and how art has empowered her to go on. Today, she educates the public about visual and hearing impairments.

Painted scenes of people shopping in a bustling Egyptian marketplace; a young girl dressed in a pink leotard practicing ballet steps; and a ripe apple held in the clutches of a strong hand are but a few of the art pieces painted by Lisa Fittipaldi.

Today, these and many other paintings by Fittipaldi adorn the walls of such prestigious galleries as the Witte Museum in San Antonio, Texas, and the Wentworth Galleries in New York City, among 30 other galleries nationwide.

But getting there took perseverance and faith on Fittipaldi’s part.

In 1993, Fittipaldi, then a certified public accountant at an Austin, Texas hospital, was driving to work along Interstate 35 when the truck in front of her and everything around her vanished. Seconds later, her vision returned. But a similar incident a few weeks later would not be as forgiving. Fittipaldi lost her eyesight permanently.

Despite seeking medical attention and undergoing eye surgery, it was determined that her sight would never return but she wouldn’t discover why for another five years. Depression soon set in.

Fittipaldi confined herself to her bed for some time until her husband, Al, who heard that art therapy was an effective means to treat depression, gave her a children’s watercolor set.

She wasn’t amused.

"I thought he was being insensitive," she said. "I was in bed and he threw [the paint set] at me and I said, ‘Well, to shut you up I’ll do something.’ It was of four glass jars—a transparency study—with the corks on top. That’s the first thing I ever painted."

Impressed by her ability to paint, Al encouraged Fittipaldi to enroll in a two-week art class where she learned basic painting techniques and the ability to memorize her palettes, relying mostly on her photographic memory to create vivid images.

Once she gained her self-confidence back, Fittipaldi began attending the Chris Cole Rehabilitation School for the Blind in Austin. With only three or four sessions under her belt, that would be the last formal rehabilitation training Fittipaldi would receive.

She was determined to carry on the best way she could. Her perseverance was needed as she soon faced more challenges.

While her husband was visiting relatives in San Diego, California, he suffered a stroke that left him unable to speak temporarily and short-term memory problems that required Fittipaldi’s care and attention.

"Everything I learned I [learned] on my own," she said, referring to the tasks she has had to re-learn to survive on a daily basis. "I do everything backwards…I had to reinvent the wheel myself. I always laugh, figuring well, I may not always do it right but at least it gets done."

In 1998, the same year Fittipaldi was diagnosed with having a form of vasculitis (a genetic disorder that inflames blood vessels, blocking circulation to tissues and organs), Al began sending media kits to museums with samples of Fittipaldi’s artwork.

Her first show, held at Dallas’s Florence Art Gallery, sold all 14 paintings and netted more than $20,000.

The irony?

"I never considered art," said Fittipaldi, who admitted that even as a young woman traveling through Europe she never visited Paris’s L’ouvre Museum or the Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume. "Art museums weren’t really on my list of things to do. I’m more interested in them now than I was when I could see."

Since becoming an artist, Fittipaldi’s interests have also grown in other ways.

Using funds from the sale of the artwork, Fittipaldi and Al (who retired from the U.S. Navy after his stroke and two triple bypass surgeries) settled down in San Antonio, Texas, where they purchased The Beauregard House. They turned the house into a five-bedroom bed and breakfast inn two years ago. Fittipaldi enjoys being a hostess and baking much of the pastries and baked goods served at the inn.

She also established The Minds Eye Foundation in 1999 to educate the public about blindness and to provide advocacy for the approximately 1 million visually impaired, blind and hearing impaired people in the United States.

The foundation is a clearinghouse of information, including information about technology products and other resources. Fittipaldi hopes the foundation will help children with visual or hearing impairments to be "mainstreamed" so that they will be "on par with their sighted or hearing peers" by the time they reach college and seek a job.

"Seventy-five percent of the people who are blind are unemployed," she said. "In a lot of cases it’s because of a lack of education, lack of opportunity and a lack of technology. While a lot of people have the finances to be educated, many are not aware that these [resources] are available to them."

As Fittipaldi has become more recognized, appearing on the Oprah Winfrey Show, Ripley’s Believe it or Not and numerous television programs abroad, she also does speaking engagements. Depending on the group, she has discussed what it’s like to have vasculitis and has demonstrated her painting techniques.

Comparing her speeches to that of a fireside chat, she said that even if there’s 1,000 people in the audience, she’ll find herself getting up in front of the group, curling her feet under her while sitting on top of a table, figuring, "I don’t have any fear of talking to large groups because I can’t see them. And I don’t have to prepare a speech."

Despite the trials that came with losing her sight, Fittipaldi has gained a new perspective on life through her blindness. Knowing that her disease provides an average life expectancy of five years—a timeline she has surpassed—she is grateful for each and every day.

"That power to live and to participate in life is very sustaining," she said, "much more sustaining than people give us [people with disabilities] credit for."

To learn more about Lisa Fittipaldi, visit her Website.