Laurie Gross is a nationally known artist recognized for her extraordinarily inspiring and spiritually based work. She reaches into biblical text and her Jewish tradition to create works embodying universal themes and rich metaphors. Much of the creative inspiration for her work is to be found in liturgical text and midrashic material. Her studio has expanded over the past few decades to include a staff of other creative artists who, together as a team, are involved in creating some of the finest work that is currently being designed for synagogue worship environments. Ten of the studio’s projects have received international awards from Faith and Form Magazine in collaboration with the American Institute of Architects and The Interfaith Forum on Religion, Art and Architecture in the area of religious and ceremonial art.
Laurie’s work has been exhibited at many of the Jewish museums throughout the country. Her work is included in the collections of The Skirball Museum, Los Angeles, and The National Museum of American Jewish History, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Hebrew Union College, New York as well as in many synagogues and private collections. The focus of Laurie’s current work has been the worship environment of the synagogue. Her projects have included ark doors and curtains, torah covers, eternal lights, art glass windows, donor and memorial walls, and site-specific sculptural pieces. It’s possible to visit Jewish communities in New York, Boston, Minneapolis, Miami, Nashville, Houston, San Antonio, San Diego or Los Angeles to experience the studio’s contribution to the contemporary worship environment. A recent project, designed in collaboration with her eldest son, Elisha Schaefer, is a departure in that it lives in an outdoor environment where the artists designed and delivered a metal shade structure as well as monumental pictorial granite murals that adorn a mausoleum section of a cemetery in Simi Valley, California. In both the shade structure and the murals, the stories of Abraham and Sarah live, expanding our understanding of our ancestors, making them real in our lives. The artistic team is currently working on the completion stages of a metal railing project for Hillside Cemetery in Los Angeles.