ArtSpace Gallery exhibit – ‘Wallflower’ by Laura Vincent-Arnold

Laura 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. Being the oldest and only child for the first 7 years of my life, 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. Throughout my childhood especially, I was always creating. 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, creating in multiple mediums, exploring where my mind takes me, solitude, and nature … always a nod to nature.

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. I loved dissecting things in primary school. However, I immediately changed course when entering college. 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. As I neared the end of my time at Winona, I learned about art therapy and began researching programs to enter. 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. I met the most amazing, strong and insightful people through that work, 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. I moved my studio space home and set up shop to work in clay. 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. I’d like to say it is meditative three-dimensional finger painting. 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, and pinch pot techniques. These are all low fire ceramic pieces that are glazed through a process of layering washes and rubbing away glaze applications.