THE POWER
of Celebration
A
STORY HODGES STORYBYBYREBEKAH REBEKAHMCLEOD MCLEOD| PHOTOS | PHOTOSBY BYDAVID DAVIDPARKS PARKSPHOTOGRAPHY PHOTOGRAPHY& &JUSTIN PROVIDED
At the intersection of art, history and religion, GSW Professor reflects on four decades of teaching, creating and the power of celebration.
28 sumter county living
A small-town life doesn’t necessarily make a life small. For Laurel Robinson, prolific artist and professor at GSW, her 43-year tenure in Americus has been substantial—influencing hundreds of students through teaching, enjoying rich travel experiences around the globe, and producing a captivating body of work that challenges the basis for human ideas. Laurel, 69, grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and with primary interests in science and art, thought she might be well-suited for the field of medical illustration. After realizing in high school that the job involved sitting at a drafting table all day long in a hospital setting, she quickly dismissed it as a career path. Laurel pursued her passion for painting instead, earning a BFA in Art and then an MFA in Painting with an academic minor in Paleontology from the University of Cincinnati.