Interview

Hi Laurelin, tell me a little bit about you?

I am a full-time painter, part-time writer, mixed-media artist and sculptor most interested in figure and fantasy art. I am a life-long horror fan, a bibliophile who co-owns the region’s only fine art bookstore, and nothing makes me feel happier than immersion in natural spaces. In little ways, all of that is reflected in my work. Like most creatives, I tend to octopus out, so creature design, bookbinding, and upcycled fashion are also pursuits I enjoy.

Who/What sparked an interest in you to become an artist?

Like everyone else, I started making art as a little kid. Most kids like to draw, dance, sing, make up stories, play in mud. I was just never told to stop. The difference between me and any other person is time spent and depth of interest. I loved making any and everything as a child, and I was encouraged to continue by my family and my peers. It became necessary at some point, and today feels like a natural and inseparable part of me.

When did you begin creating art professionally?

In 2010, I left my job at the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research in order to pursue art full-time. I loved, and still love, the people I worked with, but the work itself had nothing to do with me. I couldn’t make myself care as much about that work as I did about art. It’s ok to have a nine to five gig as an artist, (the only reason I could quit was because I have a partner who could cover the loss) but art is the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do with my life. I had to try.

What is your medium of art, what was it that attracted you to that style?

I am primarily an oil painter. I wanted to paint people, and the luminosity and warmth that you can achieve in skin painted with oil paint is unmatched in other mediums. Before I was a painter, I was a drawing artist. When I’m drawing, I gravitate toward conte, which creates a really soft sepia, or charcoal if I want deep dark shadows. Lately I’ve been really loving white charcoal on black paper. It requires some interesting problem-solving. Paperclay is probably my favorite sculpting material.

What inspires you to go pull out a blank canvass and create a new piece?

It’s usually a combination of some incredibly beautiful nature thing and a story I tell myself about it, little snippets of scenes I want to immerse myself in. I pass by a fallen log in the forest and think about the person who lives in it, for whom it’s a sacred space, or entryway to somewhere else. I like to create paintings that feel like you could walk into them. I want you to feel like you’ve just turned a corner and encountered this creature. It’s really everywhere. A moth’s wing, a wave.

When painting a new piece, what does your creative routine and process look like?

I’ve been favoring paint ing on boards, so I sand it, gesso it, gather my reference material and start drawing on it, sometimes I paint the ground or base layer in acrylic paint first, but otherwise I start right away applying oil paint.

Where do you find the creative insights to create your amazing

pieces?

Everything is reference material. Dreams, music, conversations, film, language, movement, lighting, argument, heartbreak. Patterns that repeat in nature and in human experience remind us that we’re deeply integrated in the natural world.

Rivers, branches, and neurons follow the same rules. Tiger stripes look like stretchmarks. What if freckles, birthmarks, and scars are like camouflage? If I were very still, could I grow coral, or host barnacles, or moss? I have fun exploring those connections.

What’s something you want people to know about your art?

I’m using fantasy to explore the reality of our habitat and our place in it. I want people to see themselves in nature, to see it as a part of us. The hope is to build reverence for it, respect, and a sense of protectiveness for it.

Besides art, what else captures your attention and interests? Is it a special cause, another form of creativity, or something else altogether?

As co-owner of Amatoria Fine Art Books, I’m excited to serve our creative community with a massive variety of books on any and all creative pursuits. I write whenever I can, and making thrifted fabric into clothes, rebinding old books never gets old.

What was the best advice someone ever gave you? What advice would you give to a new artist looking to follow in your footsteps?

1. Never forget how big the audience is. There is someone who will appreciate every kind of art. You don’t have to fit anyone else’s mold. In fact, it’s more fun if you don’t. 2. What makes you different is your superpower. Tell the story only you can tell. 3. Show up and do the work. Doing it makes it easier to do. No procrastinating or excuses, just show up and make. 4. You can talk to yourself, but don’t always listen to yourself. Be your own best cheerleader, ignore your inner critic.

What has been your proudest moment as an artist?

There have been many proud moments. Getting the cover of the Open Studios Tour Guide with a portrait of my father was pretty great. My dad in my art plastered all over town, everywhere I went. Being asked to make work for Showtime’s The L Word Generation Q was fantastic. Nothing quite as surreal as seeing your paintings on television. Taking over the art bookstore I used to shop in was pretty incredible. Watching my kid blossom and find her creative voice feels like an art life well-lived.

What is your mantra for 2023?

I don’t know. Something like “No wasted time, no wasted energy” to remind myself to be present in this moment, and to remind myself that my energy is precious and it is up to me where I direct it. I think it’s about creating quality from the moments I have instead of focusing on being or doing something different.

What message(s) do you seek to convey with your artwork?

Ultimately, I’d like people to see themselves in my work. I want them to see the earth as their home, their habitat, and an inseparable part of their existence. We live on a fantasy planet with bugs that look like leaves, orangutans, fiddle-head ferns, constellations, sunsets. If we found it on another planet, we’d call it paradise. And it’s right here, right now, this incredibly abundant gift. I want to project awe, and wonder, and reverence. I want people to remember there is no backup planet.

Anything else you would like to add?

I’m working on a massive project right now, a love letter to California that will be presented sometime in late October. So keep an eye out. And I’m plugging away at the bookstore creating monthly events for the creative community like maker’s fairs, poetry readings, book signing, artist talks, and more, so I hope to see everybody out at those. As for advice: Buy the art, promote your friends, go to all the shows. It keeps our community vibrant.

"Sound", 2022

"A Human Constellation" 2021

"A piece of the night itself, chipped off and strolling through the night garden. The only way to see him is by his twinkling constellations, which he’s brought with him in his body. The night is dangerous, unknown, puts a human on their back foot in a lot of ways. But the night is also alluring, a question you have to answer for yourself. Who are you when you can’t see what’s around you? Who are you when you can’t be seen?"

"Aquestrians" 2009

"Under the waves, three water horses spend long hours weaving rings out of naturally occuring veins of gold. This is my daughter, who gave us these metaphorical gold rings and married us together when she sprouted between us."