The title of local artist Lauriana Glenny’s recent exhibition at Stepping Stone Studios in Assagay sums up her incredible creative journey, writes Shirley le Guern.
As a little girl, Laurie was always drawing and, although she originally wanted to be a school teacher, her heart was set on a career in art by the time she reached high school.
Now, decades later, she has done both. No longer tethered by the latest trends and looming deadlines, she is at last comfortable as a professional artist in the lovely studio overlooking her beautiful home at Cotswold Downs. Here, she’s surrounded by her journals, sketchbooks and a mix of paintings – from the landscapes that she admits challenge her to vibrant botanicals and the bold, enticing portraits that are her latest venture.
Much of her work is anchored by nature. “Botanicals have always been my favourite just because I love nature. I love flowers, plants, their structure and the botany behind them. Proteas have become my low hanging fruit because they just sell. I think I’ve worked out a way of capturing them that’s slightly unique. Proteas have to be botanically correct but there must be emotion. So, if I could sum up my work, it is my emotional response to the world around me,” she says.
Looking back, she admits: “I could have easily slotted into the graphic design role. But when I walked into a fine art studio as a matric student, I knew that I had found a home. I could smell the paint.”
Two weeks after writing her final exams at the then Natal Technikon, she married fellow student Reuben Glenny.
Her art career started with paint techniques and murals. “We would go into these massive big mansions and, by the end of the day, we had to have all the walls painted. We had to climb up and down scaffolding. It was an incredible experience,” she recalls.
As opportunities opened up, she took them. Two years later, she was working for a children’s clothing company in Mobeni. Two years after that, she was part of a 12 strong team of textile designers working from a beautiful old Victorian house in Florida Road for David Whiteheads.
By 2001, Laurie had launched her own freelance design studio. “For the first year, I had to drive down to Durban to work in the morning and, in the afternoon, I took on photographic or mural work. It was quite exciting because, for the first time, I was completely on my own.”
By the time her eldest son, Ethan, arrived in 2004, she realised that she wanted to work closer to home.
The beauty of having worn so many different hats, she admits, was the array of opportunities that opened up for her. But she was extremely busy doing everything from designing stationery to creating homeware ranges for major retail chains.
She quickly found that juggling motherhood and tight deadlines was far from easy. Shortly after her the arrival of her second son, Ben, an exhausted Laurie became extremely ill.
During her two-year recovery, she admits that her paints were never far away. “Part of my healing was actually just immersing myself back into my canvasses. I didn’t tell anyone. Whenever I felt well enough, I would go and spend a short time painting.”
The impressive body of work that resulted was a foundation for her first solo exhibition at artSPACE in Umgeni Road during the middle of the 2010 Soccer World Cup.
But the pull of the design world was strong and she not only continued painting but also taught art at the former Fat Tuesday Gallery above the Bellevue Café and launched an upmarket stationery and gifting company called Lauriana Designs with a business partner. Their first range featured Proteas and was called Postcards from Parys.
In 2015, Laurie’s love for teaching re-emerged. After signing up to study through Unisa, she started teaching high school art at Curro. She describes her next three years as an extremely steep but very rewarding “vertical learning curve”.
Teaching around the clock soon brought her close to burn out all over again. So, in 2019, she took another leap of faith and became a full-time artist.
“By last year, I had a body of work with a shared theme of finding beauty in unexpected places,” she explains, adding that her second solo exhibition was scheduled for May 2019 but was derailed by the Covid lockdown as was a second attempt in December. A lower-key opening in February has finally allowed her to show her work after 10 long years.
Photo: Laurie in her studio surrounded by the portraits that will go on auction soon. Picture: Shirley le Guern.