About Me

BIO
Laura DeGrace is an accountant by day. However outside of her day job she is a book artist, photographer and collage artist who recently moved back to New England after a 17-year adventure in Portland, Oregon. She has a B.A. in Studio Arts from Rhode Island College with a concentration in photography. She also studied in the M.F.A Computer Art program at the School of Visual Arts in NYC. For the past 10 years, she has fed her growth in book arts with classes at Oregon College of Art and Craft and the Pacific Northwest College of Art, as well as online programs across the country. Classes have included diverse techniques including cyanotypes, paper-making, collage and more, primarily in support of her book arts work. Her work is frequently personal and often humorous, a kaleidoscope of her observations and experiences of the world.

ARTIST’S STATEMENT
I was first drawn to book arts while working at the Oregon College of Art and Craft. My career trajectory had led me from work as a commercial artist to being an accountant: a more stable, but significantly less creative field. Joining Oregon College of Art and Craft was a way to surround myself with art in the day-to-day of my job. I had never really considered book arts but wandering through the gallery on lunch breaks got me curious. I took a class and was quickly hooked. The experience was the rebirth of my artistic practice and the beginning of an everlasting journey towards confidence in my own work and self-expression.

My work frequently focuses on personal themes and is emotionally based, centering around the stories in my head that I ruminate on or dream about. By pulling them out of my head and putting them into form, I can explore new paths, new ways of thinking, or just finding ways to witness my own experience. While my work is personal, I also hope that it speaks to others who are perhaps exploring similar questions.

I love experimental forms of photography including eco-printing and cyanotype. I also like to experiment with different binding types. I have also developed some interesting motifs such as using an old IBM typewriter for text. I have occasionally worked with poets, as well as using my own erasure poetry and other nontraditional poetry forms.

For me, books arts is about community, often a community of women. In Portland, I was privileged enough to be part of a private book arts group run by Marilyn Zorando. The influence of Marilyn and that group cannot be measured, and I look forward to one day paying that forward in my own way.