Laura Richens is an artist living and working in New Orleans, LA. Born and raised in Memphis, TN, she received her BA in Studio Art from Rhodes College, and her MA in Art History from the University of Memphis. She works primarily in relief prints, letterpress, and other works on paper, and of paper, as well as printing on fabric. She enjoys working in series, sometimes incorporating text, found or composed, culminating in works in various book forms.

She serves as Curator of the Carroll Gallery in the Newcomb Art Department of Tulane University, facilitating over a dozen student, faculty, and regional exhibitions every year, and organizing the annual Holiday Sale. She is faculty advisor to several student organizations in the art department, where she also serves as an adjunct professor, teaching the Studio Art Capstone class, and Visual Arts in New Orleans, a first-year seminar. Laura has also taught letterpress and relief printmaking at Penland School of Craft. She was a founding member of the Staple Goods artists’ collective in New Orleans, and was a founding member of the annual 24-hour Draw-a-Thon.

Laura is inspired by the flora and fauna around her, as well as that of distant lands, real and imagined. Music and text are also rich sources of inspiration and collaboration, and play an important role in projects under her Vanishing Point Press imprint. While at A Studio in the Woods, she plans to study the diverse array of plants there, both native and invasive species, exploring their vast array of forms and structures as models and inspiration for new unfolding and unfurling book forms.

Instagram: @VanishingPointPress