Artist Bio - Laurel Anderson Malinovsky

 I graduated from UC Santa Barbara in 1986 with a degree in art with an emphasis in photography. After shooting many stressful weddings and working in a photo lab for three years, I realized that being a photographer may very well destroy my love for it and that I had to preserve photography as my inspiration and passion. While working at the San Francisco Art Institute, I took post graduate classes in art and photography and later, at JFK University hoping to get my Masters degree in Art in the near future.

Eventually, I decided to explore a career in Graphic Design which ended up to be a perfect fit for me. I went to school at night and received my Certificate in Graphic Design from UC Berkeley. I was able utilize my creativity, photographic skills and even some writing (I started at UCSB with a major in English) in print and web communications and actually make money doing it! As we all know, most artists have a hard time getting to the "making money" part. I have now worked for International House, UC Berkeley for about 18 years in communications and design (print and on-line). I’ve lived in California most of my life and currently reside in Lafayette with my husband Alex and two of my three girls, Natasha (16) and Alexa (13). Emilie (19), is a sophomore at Chico State University.

My photographs have become the basis for most of my artwork, but not the sole element of it. I've gone from painting on my photographs to creating multi-media pieces that are a mix of found objects, photographs and paint that I call urban “artifacts”. At one point in my past, I was interested in becoming an archeologist and later (at John F. Kennedy University) took an amazing class that focused on making artwork from that endlessly fascinating alternative universe of dreams. My “artifacts” touch on the surreal that may spark a memory, experience, desire, hope that is somehow familiar; an unfinished story that the viewer is invited to complete.