“Dog Portraits and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ... How I Came to Be”
Studio art major Laura Wilder '80 has a successful career as an artist in spite of her struggle for definition and direction along the way. “Dog Portraits and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ... How I Came to Be,” Wilder’s presentation, chronicled her journey from realist painter in an abstract expressionist environment to commercial artist to Roycroft master artisan to environmental propagandist. Throughout the talk, her standing-room-only audience was treated to a slide show of her colorful prints and paintings.
Along the way she strove for balance between commercialism and artistry and mass production and simplicity. She explained how she pursued her vision while trying not to compromise in order to earn a living.
At Hamilton, Wilder felt out of place surrounded by her fellow classmates, all of whom were immersed in abstract expressionist work. She worried that she might not fit in the “fine arts” world and pursued a career in commercial art. After four years, it became clear to her that this route was not one she could sustain much longer. Shortly after declaring herself a freelance illustrator, she was given a meaningful assignment, to create portraits of the 35 Syracuse students killed in the Lockerbie, Scotland, airline crash.
Wilder encountered the work of Roycroft artist Janice McDuffie and was drawn to the flat simplified block prints created by Roycroft printmakers. She experimented with etching and screen printing to increase her efficiency in production. She described her resistance to creating art “on popular demand” as she moved from dog portraiture to commissioned paintings of homesteads. Describing her two years of dog portraits, she said, “I knew I was on a slippery slope and down I went into full blown cuteness.” Again she became tired of the commercial repetition involved in this kind of art.
On top of the artistic demands, running her business had become a full time job. Recently Wilder has relinquished the business aspects of her art to her husband and has focused on a series of prints that explore quiet simplicity. She hopes that her art can express values and reach out to others, and she is connecting with the environmental movement through her “passionate green propaganda prints.”
by: Alexandra Ossola '10
