ABOUT THE ARTIST

Witnessing the story that a landscape is sharing is something that has been a primary experience for me since childhood, spending many hours of each day in direct contact with nature’s many faces and the breathing inter-connected network of the rural and agricultural landscape surrounding me. Provided generous encouragement to hone-in on these moments of witness through an art school my mom brought to life out of one side of our hillside house, I cultivated a trust in opening up and sharing how the subject before me was communicating to me with the most unfiltered directly-impacting meaning. “Don’t draw what you THINK you see, DRAW WHAT YOU SEE” was just one of my mother’s more quote-able gifts as a teacher.

This deeply fundamental and intuitive inner-listening process never really left me, and my continuation into in the arts in college served as the ‘adult-like’ scaffolding to give this more intimate connection a face for the outside/social world to see. Tenderly, what a subject unfurls or reveals- born out of this personal commitment and investment -has become the underlying premise of all of the landscape work you see here.

I moved to Vermont in 2006, after some time exploring yoga and mediation after college (part of my major was inter-linking art and meditation), and I’ve explored mostly the broader Champlain Valley in my work since showing publically in 2009, with various studio commitments and engagements depending on my life’s needs. Supported to make it more as a job through the patronage of commissions, I could start to feel momentum in how my work was of value and more connected to people around me. Offering the oils in the form of archival prints has also helped with keeping me engaged in local galleries, shows and the community I live in.

Today my time in my new studio in Richmond is spent on primarily commissioned pieces, which I really enjoy because it connects me with all kinds of beautiful and thoughtful people and adding fresh energy- a view or simply an infusion of something in my work I never otherwise would have found alone. This synthesis of influences, my own and another’s, is where I find the most value in my journey as an artist - and it’s definitely where the source of the color itself comes from when it meets eyes beyond myself.

Thank you for your interest in my work!

Warmly,

Laurel

ABOUT THE PRINTS

All prints are an archival quality giclée (a French word for '“spray ink”) and they are made-to-order from a small business in Vermont. The paper print comes with an additional 2” white border around the image with the title of the work and the artist’s signature hand written in graphite. The canvas prints, always finished with a fine UV protectant, omit the white border and instead wrap around a 1.5” deep stretcher frame (lightweight pine) with the signature in permanent marker on the back. My feeling is that the refined matte paper prints are best for formal or quieter spaces, containing a spacious quality enhanced by the additional border and of course the choice of framing. Alternatively, the stretched canvas prints are considerably bolder in both shape and color (via the nature of the canvas printing and coating), and thus ideal for spaces in need of infusing energy. The mirror-wrapped edges also allows for the image to feel like it’s “jumping off the wall” in one flowing unified statement. You are welcome to contact me should you need more help deciding which style to hang in your space.