About

My name is Laura and I am a native New Yorker.  For as long as I can remember I have had artistic abilities and a creative spirit.  As a child I loved to draw, write and act. I played lead roles in many school plays and I even wrote, produced, choreographed, and directed plays replete with a cast of two, my sister and I (lol).   I was never a "student" I did not like school, it bored me. So I ventured into modeling and acting.

When I was a teenager I modeled, but the rejection was relentless and wore me out so I gave it up. Icontinued acting doing mostly summer stock but I felt my interest in acting wane.  .

I dropped out of high school and worked and for a long time I got away from drawing and painting.  I took on various jobs in the corporate world I did well, but I was never truly happy.  No matter how much money I earned I was left feeling unsatisfied with what I was doing.  I very often felt like something was missing in my life.

Years ago when my sister moved away from home and into her first apartmentI wanted to make something for her to mark the occasion.   I decided I would customize her bathroom by creating original hand-painted accessories.   I chose the colors andI created a design which I hand-painted onto various items for her bathroom: window valance, sink skirt, towels, garbage can, tissue box, you name it, I painted it.  I loved what I had created and so did my sister.  A year later my sister moved into a larger apartment and again, I wanted to make one-of-a-kind accessories for her new home. I found a small side table at a flea market the paint job on it was awful, it had definitely seen better days.  Even still, I could see past its skin to the solid wood beneath.  I bought it for a song, cleaned it up, stripped it and then hand-painted it for my sister Stacey's Table. The before and after was truly amazing! The most satisfying thing for me was to take this otherwise ugly-duckling discard and transform it into a one-of-kind piece of functional art. I loved the feeling of accomplishment I had.   WOW!  What a high, I was hooked!

I continued to spend my weekends scouring flea markets and tag sales in search of ugly ducklings I could turn into Cinderella's .  I loved picking out the colors and creating original designs.   I continued making things for friends and family -giving things away (see the custom table setting I created for my sister, Stacey's Table Setting.  I received so much positive feedback about my work, people really loved my work,  and encouraged me to sell my work.

I photographed my work and created a catalog.  I gave the catalog to my then husband who worked on the set of the HBO show, The Sopranos.  I sold eight (8) pieces the very next day!
Including a commission from James Gandolfini to create a custom rocking chair for his son, Michael. From there, I started selling my work online and in galleries around the country. I love what I do!