Laura Wais

I began my artwork in two and three-dimensional form at the age of four. My work as a sculptor started in 1983 when I studied with Cassandra Light’s school “Way of the Doll” in Berkeley, California. I was trained in her art therapy workshops and classes which I later taught in the children’s ward at San Francisco General Hospital.
A.B.C. Television’s “A.M. San Francisco” featured me in an interview program with my students.

I continue to make Bunraku-type dolls, porcelain busts, and mixed media collages. I produced a collection of paintings in oil at my former studios in Sausalito and Santa Monica, California from 1998 to 2006. In 2002, I began to study underwater photography. The images of the ocean and all its splendor and mystery have provided the subject matter of many of my latest canvases. I travel to the South Pacific and Indian Ocean to explore the most remote dive sites and capture marine life and island scenery on film. My work combines Jungian archetypes and symbols from the Crowley tarot deck to create characters and narratives reflecting life’s rites of passage, challenges, and triumphs. The collages incorporate “objets trouves” (found objects) and natural specimens representing the five elements from Chinese medicine, the four directions of Native American lore, and crystals symbolizing alchemy, magic, and the future.