Pictures and Words

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• Photo Gallery - Browse some of my favorite photos
• Writing - Poetry, short stories, works in progress (coming soon)
• Laura's Blog - Ideas, inspiration, and random thoughts
• Laura's Art - Pages dedicated to my creative endeavors in art
• Oral History of Rolling Fork, MS - Project of stories about growing up in the Delta during 50s, 60s, and 70s
• Collectively Speaking - Project of family photos and genealogy (unfinished)
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Artist's Statement

Each time I get an itch to create something -- be it tangible artwork, photography, or poetry -- it starts with a moment that freeze frames itself in my memory.

Art is born of the observation and investigation of nature. ~ Cicero (106-43 BC)

Artwork starts with an idea that balloons until it seems I can do nothing but work on creating that piece, finding what satisfies my aesthetics of space and design, color and pattern, texture and simplicity. A paintbrush often feels foreign in my hands, an awkward tool that I have yet to master. Yet the eclectic items found in garages, yard sales, markets, and sometimes embedded in the grass of a college park find their home in a collage that might have a story to tell however one might want to interpret it.

If art doesn't make us better, then what on earth is it for? ~ Alice Walker (1944- )

Photography brings out a little selfish desire in me to make tangible a moment that is otherwise lost to the inertia of movement, the passing of the seasons, facial expressions becoming self-conscious, or light faintly changing as the sun passes behind a cloud. There are often moments I have withheld my shutter-trigger finger from stealing a moment from time to a digital memory, and other times I could not stop the non-stop craving to borrow one more image, one more moment, one more memory.

The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity. ~ Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

Poetry is often rooted in the phases of the moon and sun, the curiosities and questions of religion, the complexities of relationships and friendships, and the hidden treasures discovered in history and metaphor. For me, poetry might start after an event: a graduation, a death, a confession, a child's smile, or even the way a leaf waves in afternoon sunlight. Currently poetry is demanding me to discover historical or cultural stories to share, while still capturing minute detail I missed with my camera.