Western Carolina School of Art allows many students to pursue their passion and enhance their skills through the freedom of studios and materials. For Lauren Daubler, this talent and freedom allowed her to begin learning more skills and eventually to sell her art.
Lauren Daubler is a junior who is a part of InkSpace, an undergraduate artist collective at WCU.
Originally, she came to WCU in 2019 to major in graphic design but later learned that she enjoys working in the studio.
“I declared my major change in the fall of last semester and officially made the change this semester,” said Daubler. “It was this semester when I took sculpture that made me fall in love.”
Daubler’s favorite style of art is welding and having the ability to work with metal in her sculptures, she said.
“Essentially, I have never really liked drawing, but it was all I was taught in high school,” she said. “When I came to college and got to experience new mediums, I realized how much I would want to work with my hands.”
Daubler added that Ruth Asawa, an American wire sculptor, was her biggest influence for her sculptures and was the reason for her art to begin branching out. She follows the same concept that Asawa has implemented into her art.
“She focuses on organic form rather than representational,” Doubler said.
In February 2021 she found the Jackson Arts Market as a place to presented many of her skills with different mediums such as painting prints, t-shirt designs and amulet necklaces.
“Once COVID hit I did not have a job, essentially,” said Daubler. “I stayed home for a month and a half and all I did was create art. I needed an income during that time, so I began making prints of my art and commissions. It became so popular that I ran with it.”
Daubler continues selling her art throughout school while both in the studio at WCU and at home.
Her target groups of customers are fans of electronic dance music (EDM) who enjoy her abstract pieces that she creates, she said.
To see more of Lauren Daubler’s art on Instagram go to @laurendaublerart
To see more InkSpace art go to @wcuinkspace
