Laura Shefler • Biography
Artwork
Striving for spirited combinations of color, Laura Shefler creates collages, paintings, drawings, and prints. While growing up in Pittsburgh, PA, she walked to and from school through an urban forest ruled by squirrels and cardinals, where oaks and maples crowded in on the houses, weeds invaded the alleys, and blades of grass muscled through sidewalk cracks. Both her abstract and her representational works draw inspiration from the shapes and patterns of nature as they counterpoint the less organic shapes of objects created by human hands.
Her art education has included self-study, community-based courses in drawing and painting, and private consultations with mentor artists.
Teaching
Shefler, who now lives in Albany, CA, offers weekly online art history talks on an eclectic range of topics, from the prehistoric rock art of the Sahara to bronze drums of the ancient Dian Kingdom to the parallels between the modern artists M. C. Escher and Paul Klee. She regularly presents talks in person at the Aldersly Retirement Community in San Rafael.
Through the UC Berkeley Academic Talent Development, she has developed courses in writing, public speaking, and art history, including high school courses that combine academic study with field trips and studio projects to foster a lifelong passion for and deeper understanding of the visual arts.
Resumé
One-Person Exhibitions
2018 Geneva Hall, First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley, Berkeley, CA
2017 Aldersley Retirement Community, San Rafael, CA
2009 "Eye Candy," The Chocolate Moose, Pittsburgh PA
Group Exhibitions
2022 "Abstraction," Pacific Art League. Juror: Katherine Filice
2022 "Celebrating Color," Rhode Island Watercolor Society. Juror: Judy Vilmain
2022 "Your True Colors," Escondido Arts Partnership, Escondido, CA. Juror: Nicholas Wilton
2022 "Emotions," Gallerium Art, Online Exhibition
2020 "Artists Connect Group Show," presented by Past and Present Media at The Burlap Coffee, Oakland, CA
2019 Hunter's Point Shipyard Open Studios, San Francisco, CA
2018 "East Bay Vision," presented by Past and Present Media at the Piedmont Center for the Arts, Piedmont, CA
2018 Hunter's Point Shipyard Open Studios, San Francisco, CA
2016 Narrative Art Project, Jerry L. Adams Art Gallery, Berkeley City College, Berkeley CA
2015 Small Works, Limner Gallery, Hudson New York
2010 Eco-Art Matters: Endangered Species June Steingart Gallery, Laney College, Oakland, CA
2009 Artist Open Studios, Berkeley City College, Berkeley, CA
2008 Días de los Muertos, Celebration, Fruitvale, Oakland
PUBLICATION
2020 Juried into American Artwork, Berkeley, CA. Jurors:
Howard Eige, Painting Instructor, California College of the Arts
Jan Christensen Heller, Christensen Heller Gallery
