Growing up in a small mountain town in Southern California, Laura Garrahan was raised to explore and be outside most of her childhood. Because of this, most of her art centres around nature and animals. Laura’s father was an arborist and gave talks at botanical gardens and arboretums. As a child, she would attend these events with her brother and afterwards be let loose to roam the gardens where her parents would point out different names of plants and trees and their uses to us. She tells us; “This is why I have such an affinity towards plants and will continue to showcase them in my work”. Coffee, antiques, and all things Jane Austen were also a big part of Laura’s childhood; “Early every morning my father would make a pour over and the house would be filled with smell of fresh coffee. And if my mother wasn’t taking me along to an antique shop then I was hearing a version of a Jane Austen novel playing in the background on TV.” These are things she still loves dearly today, and continue to influence her prints and projects to come.
Fortunate to grow up in a home that encouraged art as a career, Laura graduated from California State University Fullerton with a BFA in Illustration and a minor in Graphic Design. Over the years she has worked on a variety of freelance commissions and projects, including wedding invitations, branding, and packaging design, as well as being an in house graphic designer/Illustrator in the corporate world.
Laura left the corporate life a little over a year ago, and now lives amongst the redwoods in the Santa Cruz Mountains. She has been slowly transitioning back into her first love of linocut, and as of April 2023 is now doing it full time. Laura was first introduced to the technique in middle school, and continued to resort back to it over the years after long days on the computer. She states; “For me, after staring at a computer screen 8-10hrs a day the need to create something traditionally is even more heightened. There is something so meditative about creating a physical piece with your hands and find there is beauty in the imperfections. Not every print is the same and when you mess up there is no ctrl + z options (that is what I love). Every piece is a one of a kind in linocut and I hope that the love of linocut and print will continue to be admired in a digital world.”
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