Laurel True Extended Biography

I had to write an autobiography in the second grade. I actually don't remember writing it, but I have it. I kept it because the last line reads: "When I grow up I want to be an artist". According to my mother, I also wanted to be a waitress - because I thought they were cool. In my early twenties, I worked as a waitress for several years so... goals achieved!

I was born in Michigan in 1968. I grew up in the Midwest and moved to California in 1995. I showed up at the University of Wisconsin- Madison in 1986 wanting to major in African Textiles. They said I couldn't major in that so I ended up with a degree in African Studies with a concentration in Arts and Cultural Studies. I was studying fashion design concurrently during the summers and in elective courses.

There was a building that I used to run by in Madison that was very mysterious and interesting to me as it was covered with murals and decoration and had unusual artwork in the windows. One day a sign showed up in the window that read: "Wanted - One Creative Person". I thought about that for years after. The whole building was what people now call an "outsider art environment". The art in the windows was made from paper mache and mirror and glitter and paint and all manner of mixed media. I was very inspired by that artwork and began making mixed media work of my own. Years later, after I had moved away, traveled around the world and come back to Madison for a brief stay, I had a studio in that building and the owner, the late artist Mona Webb, mentored me and presented my first solo show there in 1993.

During the course of my time in college, I also designed clothing and worked with pieced and dyed textiles. Aside from courses in fashion design and illustration, I took exactly two formal art courses- 2-D design and Ceramics -which I enjoyed, but chose not to pursue a formal studio art education. I was focused more on the arts through the windows of psychology, sociology, religion and culture.

After my second year of college, when I was 19, I fulfilled my dream of going to Africa and participated in a volunteer program and spent 3 months in Ghana and Ivory Coast. The next semester I enrolled as an independent student at the University of Dakar, Senegal and lived there for a year, also traveling to Mali and Gambia. I had many teachers in Senegal who influenced my artwork- most notably an artist named Daouda Diouk at the Manufacture Des Arts Decoratifs in Thies, Senegal, with whom I studied sand painting. Before returning to Wisconsin, I designed a line of clothing, which I had produced using Senegalese printed fabrics. This line, named after a Wolof greeting, sold well and I returned the following fall to work with tailors there to expand on this clothing line. As always, African fabrics and textiles continue to inspire my artwork.

In 1990, in my last semester in college I visited a friend in Philadelphia. It was there that I saw the work of Isaiah Zagar, who was to become my greatest and most influential teacher. I was excited and inspired by his mixed media mosaic work.... Isaiah was using ceramic tile, mirror, photographs and brick-a-brack to make architectural mosaics that covered entire walls. I wrote him a letter with some photos of my artwork asking if I could work with him. He said "come on" and I moved to Philadelphia. I was his first student in a line of hundreds.

The first day I worked with Isaiah he had me write "Philadelphia is the Center of the Art World" in mirror on a brick wall in an empty lot. He said that that day he taught me everything he knew, just in case the apprenticeship didn't work out. But it did, and I worked with him for roughly six months, creating large scale, mixed media mosaics on building facades, walls, floors, ceilings and sculptural objects.

It was through Isaiah that I was exposed to the art of other mosaic masters, both traditional and non-traditional. Isaiah and his wife Julia had hundreds of books and I spent many hours pouring over them. This was the bulk of my art history education up to that time. During that time I came across an article about Niki de Saint Phalle. I had been familiar with her sculptural work since high school, but did not realize she was working in mosaic media. She instantly became my heroine and her vision, style and drive continue to be very influential in my art and life today.

Other important creative influences in my life are: Antonio Gaudi, Twin Seven Seven from Nigeria, Gustav Klimt, Raymond Isadore, John Biggers, Huntervasser and traditional, spiritual, folk and textile arts from the American South, West Africa, Haiti and Latin America. I am also greatly inspired by the decorative arts of India, Asia, Morocco, Mexico, and the African Diaspora.

From 1991 - 1993 I traveled around the country and made portable mosaics using mostly salvaged materials including tile from dumpsters, scrap glass and discarded mirror. I also drew and continued to work with and study textiles. I was especially intrigued by the crossovers I noted in my studies of quilt making and other fabric piecework and mosaic designs. I traveled to Turkey, Greece and Spain and my mind was blown by the mosaics and art that I studied there.

I returned to Madison, Wisconsin briefly after that and it was there that I began to create my own architectural tile and glass mosaics in the form of work for the wall, exterior signage, floor insets, kitchen backsplashes and bathrooms for shops, cafes, restaurants and private homes. I worked with a tile contractor to build upon the skills I had been taught in permanent installation. I also made and exhibited conceptual work for the wall and mosaic crafts. During this time (early 90's), and in this place, the field mosaics had not had the resurgence of popularity that it now has. People went crazy for my mosaics and I was able to build up both my portfolio of work and exhibition experience. I had a ton of exposure because I was in a relatively small city, my public work was highly visible and my work was unique to that time and place. I started teaching mosaics workshops in 1994 in Madison, WI.

I also moved to San Francisco in 1995 and continued making portable mosaics and got a side job telling fortunes in a small shop. One day a woman walked in with a bird on her shoulder and we spoke French to each another. She turned out to be a well- known landscape architect and she gave me my first public art project for a hospital in San Diego. I experimented with sculptural mosaics and handmade tile for a series of mosaic benches. This project opened many doors for me.

I continued to do architectural mosaic work in the later 90's in San Francisco and the Bay Area and become involved with the arts scene there, working with different non- profit arts organizations and art collectives. I also continued to do community projects and work as a visiting artist at several schools. I maintained studio space mainly in the Mission district of San Francisco.

In 1999 I had a chance meeting with a woman who had been my student back in Madison who was pursuing her own career in art and mosaics, Lillian Sizemore. We became fast friends and started working together on mosaic projects, researching mosaic schools in Italy and in 1999 did our first of a long line of collaborative works, the Mission Creek Mural in San Francisco. In 2000 we traveled to Ravenna to study with another one of my great inspirations, Luciana Notourni at the Studio Arte Del Mosaico. In the late 90s and early '00s I continued many collaborative ventures with Lillian and also continued to do my own work in the public realm and to do many commissioned residential and commercial projects.

In 2001 I pursued a dream of returning to West Africa and doing community mosaic work there. I formed and alliance with Ellie Schimmelman (aka Aba) who runs a non-profit, Cross Cultural Collaborative, Inc. in Ghana and began an ongoing relationship with this organization. I have spent three summers in Nungua, Ghana at Aba House Cultural Center working with local community to create large- scale mosaic murals, sculptural forms and to teach workshops to art teachers there in mosaic techniques. I will return again summer of 2005 for another project. The time I spend in Ghana and the work I do there is very fulfilling and wonderful in every way.

In late 2001, I opened my studio, True Mosaics Studio, in its current Oakland location where I continue to teach courses in mosaic techniques and where my team and I work on commissioned projects, public art, murals, sculptural forms and work for the wall. We have lots of space to work and play there and it is a great environment. We have just opened an attached retail shop to sell mosaic products, supplies, books etc. called Mosaic Studio Supply and have plans to expand True Mosaics Studio into the first mosaic school in the US, to be called Institute of Mosaic Art.

I love what I do and consider my work life a dream come true. After years of struggling as a self -supporting artist, I am happy to be able to work, travel and do mosaics all I want... and then some. I have a great team working with me and take on assistants, apprentices and volunteers from time to time. We have a lot of fun in the studio while working really hard.

Doing private commissions allows me the financial freedom to take on low or non-paying community and school projects and low budget public art, both of which I love to do. I do love to travel and do so often for my work (have nippers, will travel). Over the years I have fallen in love with New Orleans and began teaching mosaics at the New Orleans School of Glass Works and Printmaking a few years ago. I travel there several times a year to teach. I also teach occasionally at Esalen Institute in Big Sur and am a guest lecturer at schools and art colleges.

So... looking forward to the next bunch of years and projects and adventures and fun and work. Enjoy Life!