For twenty years, I have taught photography in a diverse range of schools including International Center of Photography, Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, School of Visual Arts, and Vermont College of Fine Art. I joined the faculty at the School of Art + Design at Ohio University in 2004 where I earned the rank of Full Professor and chaired the Photography and Integrated Media Program for twelve years. In March 2020 during the wake of the Covid pandemic, I left this position to pursue new ways of working in education. As a teacher, my practice centers the relationship between ideas and their applications, focusing on the fertile relationship between rigorous craft and the risks of experimentation. I am committed to equity and justice in the classroom and understand my work as a teacher to be the extension of my work as an artist and citizen.
Testimonials
Laura has the unique ability as an educator to provide insight that not only opens up the possibilities of one’s work, but expands and enriches one’s perspective of the world through photography’s potential. Her vast knowledge of photographic history, contemporary practice, literature, and intersecting subjects are an invaluable resource, which she deftly applies through thoughtful, individualized feedback. The lessons taken from Laura’s courses, both art-related and not, have always been something I find myself going back to over and over again as I make work and develop courses myself, attempting to replicate her characteristic balance of a supportive yet rigorous learning environment. She is one of those people who can’t help but profoundly impact every student who has the opportunity to work with her.
Elisa Smith, Co-Founder and Director of Columbus Printed Arts Center
Having Laura as a mentor has been one of the highlights of my educational experience. She introduced me to so many artists and ideas that have become rooted in the structure and methodology of my practice and teaching. Her curiosity and openness, her humanness and deep love for looking closely at histories that defy easy rationalization allows for a different type of learning to take place. Laura’s interests are broad yet come from an intensely cultivated perspective. She opens up many points of access for individuals to develop their artworks while championing and highlighting each individual’s desires and goals. Her mentorship is inclusive of conceptual, formal and technical methodologies which she incorporates seamlessly into each project, allowing participants to materially resolve the work at hand and leave with an abundance of ideas for future work.
Tannaz Farsi, Artist, Associate Professor of Sculpture, University of Oregon
Laura’s course (Lost & Found: Autobiography and the Found Photograph) opens up inquiry and practice around found photographs as a source for a visually charged call and response. I'm engaging with found photographs from my family's past, an album that records a community of settlers and indigenous people in the beginning of the twentieth century. Through a skillful series of short exercises, group conversation and one-on-one guidance, Laura has helped me to find a syntax, even a rhythm, for engaging with these personal/impersonal images of ancestors, all strangers, from over a century ago. She notes that there's no whole way to resolve an ongoing historical trauma: nonetheless, sitting with the images, giving them space for the 'long pause' is the beginning of insight.
Christina McPhee, Artist