Santa Barbara based artist Laurie Gross is nationally recognized for her inspiring and spiritually based work. She reaches into biblical text and her Jewish tradition to create works embodying universal themes and rich metaphors. Laurie’s work has been exhibited at many of the Jewish museums throughout the country and is included in the permanent collections of The Skirball Museum, Los Angeles, Hebrew Union College, New York, The National Museum of American Jewish History, Philadelphia, the Museum of Contemporary Religious Art, St. Louis, as well as in many synagogues and private collections.

Her most recent fiber pieces have been focused on community healing. These weavings incorporate her Blessing Scrolls and Blessing “Beads,” and allow community members to take a Blessing for their pocket to hold and draw strength upon as they move through life.

Hold Me Heal Me: A Communal Embrace, 2023
Photo by Laurie Gross

At the same time, Laurie has been winding down her large scale commissions with Synagogues and Jewish Communal Institutions. In looking back at projects from the past fourteen years, the true highlight has been the design collaboration between her and her eldest son, Elisha Schaefer. Elisha has brought to the studio a vast knowledge of design and set fabrication. Their most recent projects are a departure from the studio’s traditional setting of the worship environment, as the projects at Mount Sinai Memorial Park and Hillside Memorial Park were conceived to live in an outdoor environment.

As a long time member of JAI, Laurie looks forward to introducing Elisha to this wonderful community and seeing his involvement grow.

Project: Garden of Solomon II, Hillside Memorial Park, Los Angeles, CA
Photos by Jason Mueller

For this metal railing, Laurie and Elisha created a story mural pulling imagery from the Tree of Life. In the center is the nurturing space where a seed can germinate in the protective shelter or womb like environment that offers nourishment early on in one’s life journey. One can also imagine this same protective sheltered environment serving as that resting place that we hope for at the end of life’s physical journey.

On either end of the main railing, we have a family of trees, an image in which trees are interconnected and embraced by roots and branches, suggesting that this family of trees nurtures those within their family unit and at the same time feels connected to generations past. Through their roots, trees are known to communicate and to nourish one another.

In between the family of trees on either end of the railing and the nurturing space in the middle, we needed a connecting element and this is where we placed our witnesses – the community of trees that span the space and help create the connection or continuity between these two key elements of the design. These witnesses also provide a sense of welcoming or a communal embrace as mourners walk through the space.

Project: Courts of Abraham, Mount Sinai Memorial Park, Simi Valley, CA
Photos by John Kiffe

For the Courts of Abraham, Laurie and Elisha designed and delivered a metal shade structure as well as monumental pictorial granite stone murals that adorn a mausoleum section of the Jewish cemetery. The large scale murals depicting The Promise, The Open Tent, Machpelah, and Akedah, illustrate stories of our ancestors Abraham and Sarah, expanding our understanding by manifesting them, celebrating them, and finding a place of meaning for them in our lives. The project was installed in 2018.