ABOUT THE ARTIST

Witnessing the story that a natural landscape is sharing became a dynamic experience for me since my childhood days in pastoral corridors of New England, spending many hours of each day in an unobstructed communication with its many faces, and the human-infused interplay of the working agricultural landscape within it. Taught to validate these (somewhat overwhelming at times) “immersions of witnessing” by way of a children’s art program my mother brought to life out of one side of our hillside home (while she raised my three older siblings, too) while squarely stacked on top of my father’s documentary film-editing basement (Searchlight Films in Bernardston, MA), I developed a comfort with translating onto paper how the subject before me was communicating to me most. Always desiring the direct freedom to FEEL over “think,” I often found myself honoring the emotive energy of the immense natural world around me, from an embodied journey. Making art equalled the constant satisfaction and joy of this level of experiential reveal, opened by way of my own feelings and direct experience. “Don’t draw what you THINK you see, DRAW WHAT YOU SEE” was one of my mother’s apt nudges to her dear students to “GO FOR IT" before the incessant ego-mind desires an abstraction away from this “ground” or a nibble off of your REAL vision, wanting to put it in some lesser-than & “common” muddy-clothing. When feelings aren’t something to be feared, there are endless treasures waiting to be called forth from our willingness to see our present-landscape from their clear resources. Open the floodgates and let’s see WHERE WE GO. That’s where the real landscape lives: if you’re bold enough to feel the color its gifting to you honestly. Within my mom’s art school, it was as though inspiration was a constant backdrop going on, and it was only us ridiculously silly humans who would temporarily block it out, blatantly and unknowingly too if we approached our opportunity to FEEL half-heartedly, without earnest discernment, and quickly full of distracting judgement we mistake for our voice, when it is only echos- - “the gripped-on thinking disguised as the KNOWING,” but it was never there to begin with, your direct experience was.

Thanks to many more special educational communities where I gained further practice and perspective into the arts, and even despite my own absurdly human sillinesses simultaneously ricocheting me forward and backward toward the bizarre puzzle of adulthood (lol), this resource-practice into inspiration, practically rooted in my bones, eventually popped open into a bloom when my own interpretations of the rich Vermont landscape that I was surrounded by in my late twenties could no longer remain hidden.

Sharing the expansive and dynamic landscapes I experienced while seeing much of the Champlain Valley throughout my thirties gave me many encouraging opportunities to encounter new and fresh eyes on my work, (each one influential), as well as uniquely supportive places and spaces for opening up to the wider spectrum of the art exhibit process more courageously as well (each one also immeasurably influential!). The Shelburne Farmer’s Market, BCA Summer Markets, The Art Hound Gallery, Village Frame Shoppe & Gallery, Common Deer, 802 Arts Org, and the lovely Shelburne Museum, have been particularly bright lights. With the help of such consistent viewers and these unique resources for artistic interaction, the vital spark drawing the work forward into a semblance of shared Vermont expressions, eventually captured into print form on this site, unfolded somehow into what it is here + now.

Renting a space to privately work and paint in the village of Richmond over the past two years has allowed me to celebrate the directions that fuel the original teaching “DRAW WHAT YOU SEE”, even more. And its lessons continuing to humiliate me when I mistake the stale assumption I might hold for the direct creative experience, which is always, NOT THAT… I only hope I can continue to keep my eyes open for what is waiting to be discovered, so much wanting to be shared… but only in the feeling the newly added paint can evoke, if I let it…

Thank you kindly, for your interest and support in this landscape painting journey I’ve been on (whew!), and the artwork of Vermont that comes about from it!

Sincerely,

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 on archival enhanced matte brighter white paper, or on a thicker Hannamuhle white paper (depending on your print size), 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 on site with a fine UV protectant, forgo any white border and instead mirror-wrap around a 1.5” deep stretcher frame (lightweight pine) with the signature in permanent marker on the back. My feeling is that the more refined capture of the matte paper prints relate better in formal or quieter spaces, containing a spacious quality enhanced by the additional border and the array of framing possibilities. I offer additional professional framing if you reach out when ordering a paper print. 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 and some dynamic physicality even. The mirror-wrapped edges also allows for the image to feel like it’s “jumping off the wall” in one flowing unified statement. They are also significantly lighter in weight than the large framed paper prints due to no heavy glass component. You are welcome to reach out if you need some help in deciding which style to hang in your space, or would be assisted by a custom framing consult to go along with it. Cheers!!