Laura Jean McLaughlin : Octopus Garden

Seems like in art school one is told that work as accessible and visually expressive as Laura Jean's is somehow not "important". Luckily, the general public knows better.

Here is one of two very wonderful little garden's or pocket parks with her art in Friendship within short walking distance of her studio. She was one of the first artists on Penn Ave. Don't have the exact location, so I guess you will have to walk around the sweet tree lined streets for yourself and find it.

"Laura Jean McLaughlin grew up in Pittsburgh, PA in a family of 11 children. She always wanted to be an artist but was encouraged to go to school to be a Medical Technologist. After taking her first clay class the last semester in school she discovered a new passion. Marc Leuthold, a ceramic artist fresh out of grad school, took Laura under his wing and helped her get into graduate school at WVU for clay with a full scholarship. Laura left her high paying laboratory job to develop and grow her newly found passion in clay.


Now Laura is a full-time ceramic artist who sells her work to over 80 Galleries, Collectors and Designers, throughout the U.S. and abroad. She studied at the Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, ME, Penland School of Crafts, NC, West Virginia University College of Creative Arts and Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Her teaching and workshop experiences include; Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild in Pittsburgh, Clarion University, Beloit University, Southern Illinois University as well as Western Kentucky University. She is recipient of the Maggie Milano Memorial Award from the Carnegie Museum and three prestigious residencies from Kohler Company in Wisconsin. Laura Jean’s ceramic work has been featured in Ceramics Monthly, Clay Times, American Style, American Craft magazine and two books; 500 Teapots and 500 Bowls. Her work is in the collection of PNC Park, Kohler Art Center, Kohler Company and HBO in New York."

Hope she doesn't mind me pasting this from her bio.