When living in the UK, I took my sketchbook to the next level and developed several ideas for exhibitions, collaborations and AR/ VR ideas, which I had intentionally exposed myself to mainly to benefit my students and community as well as developing potential business plans. Most of the time my personal creative interests are to benefit my students, such as when living in Washington she organized funding and speakers for an art-based field trip aligning with a local park and lesson-extensions on old-growth forest/ ecosystem, also I organized a field trip and funding to a Fiber Arts Museum and Workshop and as well as to the Philadelphia Art Museum which mirrored folk art and multi-cultural art taught in the classroom. I’ll never forget how excited the students got when seeing the same urn from class in real life at the museum! 

This is the sculpture I made as a gift for my husband when our cat Mongo passed away. See it displayed here using my TiVo 360 studio equipment. https://vimeo.com/549484920

Regarding exhibitions, she had a solo show at the Green Line Cafe, initiated and recieved funding for a community painting installation for the  Night Market, she exhibited a series of paper engineering worksaboutbio-medical ethics at the University of Pennsylvania Med Art Show, she presented at the Fall 2015 and 2017 Pennsylvania Art Education Association on street art (which she documents wherever she travels) and collaborated with an artist on a street art display in West Philadelphia,called  Windowishes. She displayed art at the Kind Institute in response to a call for artists from the Humane Society of the United States to end live pigeon shooting and created a pin design  called "Liberty & Justice for All " which was handed out to delegates at the 2016 DNC. 

Since earning her BFA and Art Ed Certification, Laurie continues her education, searching for and relishing educational opportunities that will enhance her students’ experience in her classroom. She was selected to participate in two consecutive Summer courses on Creative Global Education by the University of Pennsylvania: Using the Arts to Teach Global: History, Happenings, and Heritage &  Legendary Empires: Power, People, and Politics. And she continues dabbling in graphic design, 3D printing, and laser-cut tech, by taking classes at maker-spaces. Most recently taking classes on augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) through the University of Oxford in the UK and frequented as many AR/ VR-based exhibitions as possible in Europe to see how she can adapt it into lesson plans for her classroom. She knows what motivates students and is excited about it herself which helps engage students. 

Contemporary art, experimental art, and experience art (with excellence) are among her newest philosophies and interests, for example, testing out Post Modern Principles, which Laurie has found as a helpful tool to help deepen students’ understanding(s) of Art. Experimentation and curiosity is integral to providing a unique art experience for students, and nearly a decade ago, one can see examples of this philosophy playing out in Laurie’s personal works as well. She remade a short film which used experimental techniques and MovieMaker editing software (PC) called, Urban Legend of Bob at St.Louis Art Museum then later as technology improved she re-visited it using the iMovie (app) called, Urban Myth: Warring Souls at the Art Museum. Her current challenge combining storytelling with technology, nowadays, includes 360 degree filming for VR, she’s on the look out for a story that would be good layered with sound in the round.

She took took an online accredited class called iPads in the Art room. She created a daily gratitude journal with a parallel motive to familiarize herself with various apps. While teaching in Washington she finally experienced a student body with 1:1 tech accessibility (every student had Chromebooks!), which gave Laurie the opportunity to develop her own graphic design curriculum for students, which she enjoyed immensely. While working at Wheatley Park students also had Chromebooks (1:1), and she witnessed how devices were seamlessly integrated into a school. She noted structures and procedures in place which helped Chromebooks be a proper and safe tool of learning and efficient for teaching.