Laura Mitchell

I have never been able to scrawl much more than a stick man in my whole creative journey up until two years ago. While praying about how I could raise some money to get overseas I had an idea to creat artwork out of words - Scripture verses from the Old and New Testament. I began that moment to scratch out a few designs and realized, as I erased and smudged and threw away many sheets littered with my baby-artist brainstorms, that I had much to learn about how even the way a line bends communicates something different depending upon its tilt and thickness. Slowly I built a gallery of over tw...

I have never been able to scrawl much more than a stick man in my whole creative journey up until two years ago. While praying about how I could raise some money to get overseas I had an idea to creat artwork out of words - Scripture verses from the Old and New Testament. I began that moment to scratch out a few designs and realized, as I erased and smudged and threw away many sheets littered with my baby-artist brainstorms, that I had much to learn about how even the way a line bends communicates something different depending upon its tilt and thickness. Slowly I built a gallery of over twenty pieces and began, shyly, showing them to friends. I sold enough in a few months to make the trip overseas and, much to my surprise and delight, discovered this art form is in fact an ancient creative expression born in the very country I had raised the money to visit.

Over the past few years these Word-filled images have evolved from being entirely in black graphite on cream backgrounds to consisting of multi-colored ink on white backgrounds. I have played with the idea of filling more space on the page with words and color but prefer the more clean-lined, simple images. The simplicity is half the beauty of the art which, in essence, is about letting the Words come to life themselves as they shape into an image meant to convey the weight they carry. Too much clutter or color would inhibit the Word from just speaking. So that is me and that is my art: Word, speak.