“I left my birthplace, a tiny island in the middle of the Bering Sea, when I was a baby, and I’ve been traveling ever since. I’ve been drawing almost ever since, too. One of my earliest happy memories is of finishing a portrait of my big brother and thinking, “it looks just like him!” I was three; he was seven. Sketching in city settings, I use a close- to mid-range focus, emphasizing more intimate, less panoramic subject matter: wine glasses, plates, cutlery — the remnants of a bistro meal; people caught in ordinary, oblique moments; figural sculpture and fountains that animate public spaces and remind us of the human presence behind the scenes.
Drawing in public the way I do gives me a connection to other people and to places I could get in no other way. Strangers stop to talk, to ask questions, to take photos of the artist at work, sometimes simply to observe in silence. In one way, it’s a participatory thing we do — looking together, reacting together. And for me, the sketches remain as permanent evidence of those observations and those connections.”
• Laura’s blog: Laurelines.