Life is Beautiful with Weedmaps and the artist Laurie Shapiro
Laurie Shapiro is a visual artist who specializes in installations, painting and mixed media work. Her immersive installation “Flowers Are Not A Crime” presented by Weedmaps can be seen from September 17, 2021 at the Life is Beautiful Festival. The fantastic piece shows the cannabis plant with vivid colors, patterns and other natural elements. In the hustle and bustle of the festival experience, “Flowers Are Not A Crime” offers space for mental calm and reflection.
To better understand her creative process, we sat down with Shapiro to talk about art, cannabis, and the inspiration behind her latest work.
Laurie Shapiro on becoming an artist
WM: Tell us about your path as an artist. How did you come here?
Shapiro: I grew up on Long Island, New York and now live in Los Angeles. When I was a teenager, I realized that I wanted to be a professional artist and a visual artist. That led me to attend the College of Art at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. After graduating from high school, I moved to Pittsburgh, and it wasn’t until college that I realized that I could actually become a visual artist. I knew I wanted to do this, but I didn’t know how it was going to work. I just felt like I had to.
Lots of what [that school] gave me the recognition that I could make a living from it and it was a very valid career to choose. After college, I moved to Oakland, California, and lived there for five years, and in 2017 I moved from Oakland to Los Angeles to pursue my art career and have lived here ever since.
WM: There’s a line you landed on that I want to revisit. You said, “I felt like I had to.” Can you describe how that feeling was? It can be different for everyone.
Shapiro: When I was a teenager it became very obvious that people were starting to go to college and find out what they wanted to do with their lives, and I was very much aware that the career you choose – at least in my life – the right one would be most of my life. And I wanted to have a meaningful life. So I don’t know Somehow I just thought, “I have to do fine arts. That’s the most meaningful thing I do. When I do my job, I feel connected to something bigger.” I pursued this because I felt in my soul that this would be the best I could do for myself and for my existence in this world.
WM: How would you describe your work?
Shapiro: My work often consists of many floral and natural elements. My work is colorful and vivid, it ranges from large immersive installations that one can enter to stand-alone paintings. What connects everything in my work are nature and flowers and different worlds of plants. And that is the constant reminder in my work that nature connects us all, we are part of nature.
About the inspiration behind “Flowers Are Not a Crime”
WM: Tell us in your own words about your Life is Beautiful installation “Flowers Are Not A Crime”.
Shapiro: Cannabis is a plant and a flower, and working with Weedmaps on this installation has been very exciting as I always use flowers and nature in my work. The main theme in all of my work is that nature is part of it, we are connected to nature, we are nature, we have to respect nature, be amazed and see ourselves in it.
For this piece for weedmaps, I was very interested in researching and documenting the weed plant, the flower, the various processes of plant growth. The name of this piece is called “Flowers Are Not A Crime” because it is simply absurd to think that we have so many people in and out of the prison system in this country for a plant that unites us.
WM: What was your process like creating Flowers Are Not a Crime?
Shapiro: For this piece I attended a [cannabis] Farm in Northern California. They let me tour the entire facility and document their facilities in various stages. I took real pictures and then in my own style I drew the plant in different stages and then this plant [drawing], along with flowers and plants that are not based on weeds, was used to create this installation.
To the [Flowers Are Not A Crime], I make five different paintings flat in my studio in different shapes, which are pre-measured, they fit on a metal cross-beam to form an installation. I also do custom lighting that goes into the installation to create this cohesive weed-flower jungle that I hope will bring people together and make us happy to celebrate the flowers.
WM: The Life Is Beautiful Festival is day and night. How does the time of day or night affect your installation and what are you hoping for?
Shapiro: During the day the sunlight shines [the piece] strong from the outside, during the night it will glow from within. Both ways of seeing the piece should have a similar effect on people, I hope. This installation can be a peaceful place, a little peace of mind, and a sense of being connected to nature even though we are in downtown Las Vegas.
I hope it just helps people feel centered and connected and also reminds them that flowers are not a crime, we have come a long way, there is still a lot to be done and a lot of justice to be done for the people lost their lives to a flower.
About cannabis and the creative process
WM: How did cannabis inspire you for this project? Was it different to working with the cannabis flower from other flower pictures?
Shapiro: This is the first time I have used cannabis flowers and plants as repeating designs in my artwork. Although cannabis has been in my life since I was young, it has many connotations, you know? For example: “People who smoke weed are lazy” – I am obviously not lazy, I work all the time. This project makes me feel more comfortable accepting cannabis. A lot has been stigmatized about it, but ultimately it’s a plant that can be relaxing for people and has many health benefits.
Lots of people, no matter what you look or appear to be, so many different people enjoy it. [Cannabis] can bring people together, it can open doors in our minds and this project has really helped me accept that and I hope to share this with other people.
WM: What is your creative process like in general? How do you come up with a new piece from start to finish?
Shapiro: The process in the studio involves a few different techniques. I will draw pictures of different plants that I find. For this project I visited a farm in Northern California. For other projects, I’ve traveled to Hawaii and documented plants or made trips to California and documented plants. And then I make drawings of these plants, either from life or from my own pictures. These drawings then become screen prints that I do myself, and then I use them as repetitive images in all of my work.
My installations all consist of different segments, all of which are painting. They are made very similar to a painting, only not stretched on wood. For this project the material I paint and use on is heavy duty PVC vinyl. It’s the same material that is often used on boats to keep the boat weatherproof, so it’s really made to withstand a lot of weather.
WM: How do you navigate to creative blocks? Any advice on how to overcome them?
Shapiro: I think that creative blocks build up in a lot of people because they may get scared or think too much about what you are doing. You’re too analytical when you need to be really creative and let things flow.
When I was in school there was a lot of analytical work and it could be difficult to do something because you wondered, “Is that important enough?” You are considering it. But whatever you believe spiritually, we are creative beings and one of the best things we can do is create beauty, creative love and joy. Because if we don’t do that, we can also become very destructive as humans.
My best advice for a creative block is to do what you can to get out of your own head. Maybe take a trip, maybe take a long hike, maybe enjoy some grass. Do something that prevents you from analyzing things and just do it. Meditation is a great way to let go of your thinking brain and get in touch with being.
If I feel like I’m stuck with painting, I might try something different, for example, if I’m not sure what topic I want to paint on, I might start working on a completely different medium. I could make a sculpture, I could do something with clay because I’m going to be creative and get that part of my mind flowing.
WM: How do you feel when you create? Does the process of making art add to your wellbeing and wellness routine?
Shapiro: When I do work I feel like people who don’t do art when they meditate or when they feel very centered and connected to something bigger. As an artist, I love that feeling and I live for it because it’s just … the joy of doing the work. The joy lies in creating. It keeps me centered, it makes me feel determined in my life. That’s all part of wellness, you know, being connected to the work that you are doing.
Featured image from Weedmaps
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