Biography
Laura has taught numerous workshops for adults and kids, both privately and through the Temiskaming Art Gallery, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Temiskaming Board of Education’s Fine Arts Program.
In April, 2001, Laura won Northern Telephone’s Directory cover contest. As a result her painting, ‘Wash Day’, appeared on telephone directories throughout Northeastern Ontario in 2002.
Besides having her paintings in numerous private collections, Laura has displayed her work in solo and group exhibitions. She has applied and has gratefully received many grants through the Ontario Arts Council for her exhibition costs. Venues have included the Temiskaming Art Gallery, Timmins Museum and Exhibition Centre, North Bay’s Kennedy Arts Centre, Sir Harry Oakes Museum of Natural History in Kirkland Lake, Salle Augustin-Chenier Gallery in Ville Marie, PQ, Louis Hemon Gallery in Chapleau and Mezzanine Gallery at the Cobalt Classic Theatre.
Laura’s popular series, Slices of Temiskaming, currently available in print form, takes a whimsical look at life in a small Northern community. Enlarged reproductions of the paintings spent ten years on display at Chartrand’s Your Independant Grocer in New Liskeard as part of their store’s unique decor. Recently Laura has created another series entitled ‘Slices of Manitoulin’ to reflect the magical places on the island that she loves to visit to this day.
Choosing subjects by what delights and captures Laura’s imagination, from local landscapes to stately old homes is her true passion. Just as importantly, she feels, is the care taken in matting and framing her work.
LAURA LANDERS was born in 1951 and raised in the copper mining town of Noranda Quebec. Even as a little girl she was always painting and drawing. Even then the idea of selling her ‘early art’ from door to door for spending money came to her young, entrepreneurial mind. In high school she drew her classmate’s portraits and took her first art classes from Gwen Cameron for fifty cents an hour. Her parents, feeling that their daughter might have ‘possibilities’, signed her up for the Art Instruction School Commercial Course, which she completed through correspondence.
After she married in 1970, Laura would sell her pastels and ink drawings in a local Noranda drug store.
In 1978, she moved to Espanola, Ontario with her then husband and two young children, Peter and Karen. The breathtaking LaCloche mountain range, the beautiful Manitoulin Island, the North Shore and their host of artists all struck a chord. They influenced Laura into realizing that a career in art seemed truly exciting if not rewarding. She became very much involved in the Annual LaCloche Country Art show held in Willisville and over time exhibited her work at that venue annually up until the present.
In 1981 the Landers family moved to Timmins, where Laura promptly became a member of the Porcupine Art Club and the Northern Ontario Artists’ Association. During this time she attended many workshops, artist colonies and college classes to learn all that she could about various mediums. Over the many years within this association, she earned her N.O.A.A. letters of which she is very proud.
But moving to Haileybury in 1984 was where Laura’s life changed in many dramatic ways.
Laura was already deeply immersed in to the community and the art world when her marriage came to an end. She volunteered at the Temiskaming Art Gallery, started dabbling in custom framing and managed to get Peter and Karen through school, college and university.
Soon she formed Laura’s Art Shoppe and opened a framing business out of her own home. Later she joined forces with canvas and clay, etc, (an artwork and art supply store) downtown New Liskeard.
In 2012-Laura established her own shop in Cobalt at 37 Silver Street where she not only exhibits her own work and does custom framing-she also sells local and regional art work, carvings and sculptures!
