Laurel Daniel knows that her life tends to present unforeseen opportunities. And unlike most, who might grip on to a current situation like tree roots to the ground, she’s learned more from letting go than digging in.

While none of the major stages of her career have been particularly planned, all have revolved around visual arts. She’s found success in each, most recently as an oil painter and teacher at the Art School of the Austin Museum of Art on the historic grounds of Laguna Gloria.

“You’re traveling along, and the last thing you want is a change, but it comes along, and you get this whole new chance,” she said.

Her chance to rediscover painting came when her husband got a job in Austin. The couple lived in California for almost two decades, and they moved when their children had just begun high school.

“That was a really hard move, she said. “They were a junior and a freshman – for me, it was all about getting my family settled.”

In California, she had built up a solid business as a freelance graphic designer, which she could have transferred to Texas thanks to the electronic age; instead, she opted to hand her clients off to a trustworthy friend in the field so that she could focus on helping her son and daughter adjust. Without the pressure of running a business, but with the knowledge that she would soon be tending an empty nest, Daniel decided it was time to find a creative outlet and return to painting.

Because of an art class at the Austin Museum of Art, Daniel found her perfect mentor in artist Cassandra James and came full circle.

The beginning

That circle began as a young girl in Wisconsin, where Daniel’s family had a passion for music and nature.

“For vacations, we camped,” she said of her younger days. “Sometimes, we’d beg to go to Disneyland, but we loved it. So then later, we made our kids camp, too. I spent my whole childhood right on Lake Michigan.”

Daniel’s parents found their creative outlet in song, so it wasn’t until an art class her senior year of high school that Daniel fell in love with visual art. She took that passion to college, earning her bachelor’s degree in art from Wheaton College in Illinois.

“In college, I always thought, ‘I’ll never be a commercial artist,’ ” she said.

Those days opened the door to art history and modern art and the idea of conveying a true social meaning through the created visual.

“But I wasn’t ready for that,” she said of her early career.

At the time, she lived in Lexington, Mass., and her calling first took the form of an art teacher.

“I didn’t go to school for it, but I kind of talked my way into the job,” Daniel said.
Daniel loved her work, but her husband got a job offer in California. For the first time in her professional life, the world pointed her in a new direction and she followed.

“I started doing graphic design; again, I kind of talked my way into the field,” she said. “I took a job and learned the ropes, but when we had kids, I decided to freelance so I could work from home during their childhood.”

Daniel built that successful business, learning each nuance of the various mediums and technologies for layout and design. But when opportunity came knocking for her husband again at the beginning of the new millennium, she once again took life’s lead and started over.

Rediscovering art

That first class at Laguna Gloria reignited Daniel’s passion for art, and she soon fell in love with the richness of wet oil paint on canvas. The classes took her outdoors, where she found an even more specific passion for the “en plein” air style, a French term meaning “to paint outdoors.”

“It was such a blessing; it was great for me to have that chance to say, ‘If I could do anything, what would it be?’ ” she said. “It was just for fun. I was just going to do it because I loved it and there was no pressure.”

Much of the freedom Daniel felt came from the fact that her representational artwork didn’t require her to put a deeper meaning behind each brushstroke, like much of her art education had dictated.

“I took a still-life class, and it was so refreshing to paint apples and oranges and have it not mean anything extra,” she said. “I didn’t bring out any extra expectations.”

She stressed that she has a profound respect and appreciation for the contemporary and the abstract, but that she had found her passion in the representational. And in letting go of trying to connect to the viewer for some specific or predetermined reason, Daniel is able to create art that has resonated with those around her, now having steady representation in multiple galleries across the country and a constant flow of pieces picked for various exhibits.

“I keep pinching myself,” she said. “I feel very fortunate, and it never gets old. I really feel blessed in what I do, and I’m thrilled when people like it.”

The plein air painting, she says, allows her to connect to that zeal for nature fostered as a young girl.

“The whole notion came around when the impressionists were establishing their genre,” Daniel said. “Until collapsible aluminum tubes were invented to keep the paint wet, you were kind of stuck in your studio. Then someone invented the French easel.”

Daniel thrives in finding inspiration in a particular spot and then capturing it in a specific moment in time. The light will inevitably change over the hours it takes her to paint, so she must remember all of the details of one instant and then use the scene with the changing light as a guide to paint the rest.

A higher calling

By the early 2000s, Daniel had gone full time with her painting career. Her work had begun selling well, but her path took another unexpected turn.

“My teacher moved and challenged me to take her place,” Daniel said. “It’s more of those changes that you done choose. Her leaving was really hard.”

But, as she’d learned to do in the past, she let the universe pick up the paintbrush and entered into her new setting as a teacher at the Art School of the Austin Museum of Art.

“When Cassandra moved away, she recommended Laurel, and the positive comments from her students came pouring in,” said Judith Sims, director of the Art School at the Austin Museum of Art. “She’s done a fabulous job, her classes fill quickly every semester. She’s a wonderful teacher and a real benefit to the art school.”

Daniel, however, says she’s learned far more from her students than they have ever learned from her.

“I feel like it stretched me,” Daniel said. “I had to learn how I think about what I do and articulate the process. And, teaching at Laguna Gloria is just the perfect place.”

Austin, Daniel said, is the ideal setting for her outdoor painting ventures, which she does at least four times a month. She finds perpetual inspiration at Bull Creek and the Zilker Botanical Gardens and constantly discovers new places speckled in the green areas throughout the city that speak to her.

Daniel said the process of transferring to painting full time has also helped her connect with her family on an even deeper level.

“There is something so different about this venture,” she said. “It requires something really different, and it’s so great to see [my children] proud of me.”

Her new career took off just as her children ventured out into the world after graduating from Westlake High School. While they come home for all her major shows, her sturdiest foundation has been her left-brained husband, who balances her creative flair with his analytical mind.

“That’s a really important thing to have – he’s right there, and he can always get me through, always encouraging and helping. I can’t ask for more,” she said.

Now, celebrating a decade in Austin, they’ve lived in the Westbank since they arrived. Daniel says she couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.

“It’s close [to downtown], but it feels like the country, and we’ve made so many friends,” she said. “This is our community.”