Artist reception for ArtSpace Gallery exhibit – 劳拉Vincent-Arnold

劳拉Vincent-Arnold

I grew up along the Mississippi River in a small town and Driftless region of Wisconsin surrounded by nature. My mother’s side of the family were farmers and miners that came here from Cornwall, England and family history and heritage were central in my upbringing. 在我生命的前7年里，我是家里最大也是唯一的孩子, I recall spending a great deal of time in my head making up magical stories and adventures. I would imagine knights on horses riding through the dense miniature moss “forests” that grew on the stone walls at my grandparent’s home. I would climb trees and wander through the wooded areas around my home and those of the family farm in Wisconsin. I would wait and watch for people to peer over the edge of the billowy clouds in the summer sky. 尤其是在我的童年，我总是在创作. My family did not have a lot of money so I’d create things what I wanted such as stuffed animals or other toys. I was always drawing and writing stories, dressing up and acting out stories in my head. These childhood experiences have truly shaped who I am as an artist today, 在多种媒体中进行创作, 探索我的思想带我去的地方, solitude, 还有自然，总是向自然致敬.

I traveled up the Mississippi River to Winona State University to attend college, initially with the plan of focusing on pre-med coursework to pursue a surgical career as I had always been fascinated by anatomy and biology. 小学时我喜欢解剖东西. 然而，进入大学后，我立即改变了方向. I found myself exploring psychology, Women’s studies, literature, and of course art. My focus while pursuing my fine art degree was both painting and ceramics. 当我在薇诺娜的时光即将结束时, 我了解了艺术疗法，并开始研究要参加的项目. I decided to attend Mount Mary College in Milwaukee, a small private Women’s college. There I explored my emotions and internal landscapes through art making of all sorts expressive movement, play therapy, painting, and ceramics. I completed my Master of Science in Art Therapy from Mount Mary College in 2002. Life became quite focused on helping others find their creative voice and healing from trauma and living with different mental health symptoms. 我遇到了最神奇的, 坚强而有洞察力的人, who confirmed how interconnected we all are as living beings here on Earth.

As time passed, it became clear to me that I needed to focus on my own art making once more. I decided to focus back on my own art making through painting in 2017 and in 2018 moved into a studio space at Bucktown Center for the Arts. In 2020, Bucktown closed its door permanently as the world shut down with COVID. 我把我的工作室搬回家，开始制作粘土. It is important for me to work in both 2D and 3D mediums so that I can fully express myself as an artist. Just as there are words and phrases in different spoken languages that best describe an experience, I find that painting and drawing give my internal self a space to speak, while ceramic and sculpture making allow me to explore and better understand the outside world. I look forward to where my art takes me next as I explore my inner and outer spaces.

Wallflower

My art is a visual representation of my relationship to the natural world around me. This show reflects solitary journey of art making through organic form. I feel most comfortable sitting along fringes of everyday existence and have come to value this part of my process. There were countless times though out my life where I questioned this part of me. A deeper understanding of the nature world has been and continues to be an important part of my art and my creative process.

The Wallflower Exhibit represents my ever expanding and changing wall reliefs made through a spontaneous sculpting of the clay surface using my fingers and ceramic tool. 我想说这是冥想的三维指画. Natural organic forms both visible with the eye and microscopic inspire the ceramic shapes I create. They are reminiscent of foliage, flower, fungi, and underwater vegetation. Accompanying the wall reliefs are abstract vessels built using a combination of slab, coil, 还有捏锅技术. These are all low fire ceramic pieces that are glazed through a process of layering washes and rubbing away glaze applications.