Recognized as one of Cape Cod’s most talented watercolor artists, Laurel captures the beauty of her surroundings in realistic landscapes, seascapes and nature close-ups. She feels her work is important as a way of encouraging others to preserve and protect a unique environment and its rich historical context. Her artwork is a bridge between the artist and the viewer who has experienced and appreciated the peaceful beauty found along the shore. Laurel prefers to work in watercolor because she enjoys the challenge of controlling a water-based medium while using and synchronizing a large variety of techniques. She loves the clarity, transparency, and subtle color variations of the medium. Her work is known for its harmonious color, detail, balanced compositions, strong values and tranquil moods.
Painting has always been a part of her vocabulary. In childhood, she loved drawing and painting over many other activities. Her formal art education took place at Mount Holyoke College where she majored in Art History and minored in Studio Art. She completed an MA in Art History at Oberlin College, specializing in American art. Next followed curatorial, docent, and conservation work at the Smithsonian’s American Art Museum/National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. and at Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. She studied the world’s best art and learned the importance of preserving it as a reflection of times past, worldwide cultures, and individual expression. She taught Art History at Alfred University, enjoying the opportunity to pass on information to students and to be part of the artistic community there. She decided to become a professional artist when she moved to the Cape in 1974 with her husband and was raising her children. Since that time she has studied watercolor under Claude Croney (AWS), Kristie Velesig, Kely Knowles, Sandra O’Connor, Vera Champlin, and Ann Hart. While she enjoys learning from and being with other artists, Laurel prefers to develop her own style.
Award winning, her work has found its way around the world. Locally, she has shown in the Hingham Gallery, Gallery 31, Saltworks Fine Art, and The Artists Paintbox, and at The Artist Cottages. Her work can be seen currently at Eastwind Gallery in Orleans. She also shows at the Chatham Creative Arts Center’s Festival of the Arts, other outdoor, group and solo shows, the Cape Cod Cultural Center, and as a juried artist member the Cape Cod Art Association, where she has been recognized as a Master Artist, and Chatham Creative Arts Center. She is a member of the Yarmouth, Falmouth and Plymouth Art Guilds. She volunteers at the Cape Cod Natural modafinil200mg History Museum as a trail guide and on the Taylor-Bray Farm Archaeological Project as an amateur archaeologist where she enjoys learning about Native American and colonial history on Cape Cod. Both activities broaden her thinking and present inspirational subject matter.
Artist Statement-
“My art comes from my exploration and understanding of a world and a place I love. A resident of Cape Cod since 1974, I have walked, hiked or kayaked around, over and through this very special place that is my home, visiting special locations and discovering new ones every day. It also comes from being self-confident and knowing I have something interesting to say about the intricate nature of the environment and the need to preserve it. I am also continually cognizant of the accumulated history of a unique setting that has drawn people to this peninsula for thousands of years and sustained them. That awareness is also part of my art.
Each work has a story to tell or an experience to share. It is not a souvenir or a postcard of sights on a trip one might take, but something that continues to speak and enrich the person to whom it belongs, a person who likely has felt what I have when the sun filters through the trees, wind stirs the sea into a boil, or a flower springs from the earth in a garden, field, or marsh. Those are the moments when Nature humbles us and we become aware of our place in a universe and forces beyond our personal space.
Capturing detail is a way of pointing out things others may have seen and forgotten or may not have been aware of at all. Using color, values, and composition, I can lead the eye about the two-dimensional space and suggest a third dimension and a special, calming place to inhabit. Subjects are chosen by me for the history they represent or the important part they play in a particular community. Recently, some of my paintings have embodied my feelings about changes taking place in the environment and other events. I encourage people to be curious, to look carefully, take the time needed to understand how things work, preserve the good, recognize the great value of something other than money and to connect with other people as I believe an artist does in expressing ideas and experiences through paint. Through my art, I invite you to enjoy the journey you are on and that we share.”
Artist Website-