Today we’d like to introduce you to Laura Andrews.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I grew up on the border of Lebanon Hills Regional Park in Dakota County, MN and have had a lifelong relationship to this place. In college at Lawrence University, I was waiting to get feedback from my graphic designer boss Marsha Tuchscherer. Standing in her office, I saw some of her own plein air paintings on the office wall. Plein air (“in the open air”) paintings are made on location, while observing your subject. I didn’t even know what they were, I just knew these paintings had an immediate and powerful effect on me. She described her process and eventually took me out painting with her on her farm. I was hooked.
When I returned home, I started painting in Lebanon Hills and have continued returning to this place to paint throughout my career. For me, painting allows for a closer and more intimate observation of place and simultaneously creates an alertness to changes in the land. This connection comes from the practice of looking inherent in painting on location.
I spent many years honing my painting process, and eventually went to graduate school at Minneapolis College of Art and Design. I took an amazing Landscape Painting class there with painter Holly Swift, a talented artist and teacher. She helped me broaden my approaches to my craft and remains a mentor and friend.
Currently, I make plein air paintings to try to pin down the mutability of time in the landscape by responding to the textures, masses, forms and spaces I encounter outdoors. This could be in a forest or in the alley behind my house in Minneapolis– I am always curious about how light, air, weather and colors change throughout the day, from day to day and year to year.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I think making art is a way of searching, opening up your senses and reporting back to your work and your audience about what you find out, which can make you vulnerable. I have had difficulties finding my way with my artwork when I let too many outside influences into my creative practice. Being true to myself, my subjects and my experiences has helped me be more in tune with the paintings I want to make, instead of the ones I think I should make.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Currently, I make plein air paintings in a variety of locations, but focus on both Lebanon Hills Regional Park and increasingly, my neighborhood in Minneapolis.
I also make studio paintings focused on canopy views of trees from my grandfather’s overgrown tree farm. No longer a functioning farm, the dreamy overgrown branches and filtered light shift the perspective above the viewer’s head. Referencing di sotto in sù (“seen from below”) ceiling painting techniques, these canopy studies frame not floating Renaissance figures but tree trunks, branches, leaves and sky.
I also teach drawing and painting at Minneapolis Community and Technical College (Minneapolis College). My artwork and my teaching reinforce each other, many times the curiosity in the studio manifests itself in questions to my students. On the flip side, being around students who are hungry for knowledge and experience, and who have their own perspectives keeps me engaged in creativity in a way that is never stagnant.
Alright, so to wrap up, is there anything else you’d like to share with us?
Just to note the image credit for the photographs of me is Eileen Cohen, it would be great if she could be credited. All of the pictures are from an event at Silverwood Park in St. Anthony, MN called “Field Trip” where I demonstrated plein air painting.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.laurandrews.com
- Instagram: @laurandrewspaintings
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@lauraandrews7330
