Laura Jean Gabert

Northwestern Oklahoma State University's lecture series had Laura Jean Gabert on a call to talk about her artwork. Her lecture consisted of a slideshow of her work while she talked about each one and her process. Gabert also works as an art therapist, and at the beginning of her lecture, talked about flow, the mental state she gets in when she works that combines hyper awareness and auto-pilot.

Gabert does a lot of mixed media. Her first shown works (older) included a lot of printmaking backgrounds with watercolor and ink layers on top, but as the lecture progressed, I saw a lot less printmaking and a lot more watercolors. Her subjects mainly consist of female figures. She was influenced by fashion drawings - the strong lines work their way into her work.

Gabert's process is what is important to her. She likes just enjoying the process of making things, not needing a rigid set of things to do or get to. This idea of continual discover and exploratory technique is central to her work. She believes in physically working on a piece until you figure out what you're doing. You explore the work with your hands on the paper, but you also do research to help build a theme or idea. She described this as starting a piece to kind of see where it could be going, and then stepping back and taking time to be inspired by things around you.

This whole process is very in line with Gabert's other line of work. She works as an art therapist and a crisis worker, so she spends a lot of time working as "a sponge" for other peoples' pain. Making art brings self care to her and heals her, which makes sense with her art therapy career.

As for meaning in Gabert's pieces, she is a big advocate of finding meaning after or while making a piece, not before making it. I think this is a fun way to work, though it is not really the way I choose to do my artwork. Asking the question, "What could this mean", though, also opens up new routes of discovery, which I appreciated. It helps ideas progress and grow.