Laura Dumm: Biography
Laura was born, raised and still resides in Cleveland, Ohio. Self taught, she has always been interested in art. She married cartoonist/artist Gary Dumm in 1971. In 1986, after working for various publications, she made the decision to become a freelance graphic artist/illustrator and started her own graphic art business to pay the bills. In 2009 she retired to be a full time painter, which she is first and foremost.
“I’m a typical Gemini, I need change. I have never worried about having a signature style, painting the same way over and over is a bit boring to me.” For example, from 2008 to 2011, she was painting people/animals in abstract quilt-like patterns, then recently changed to a more realistic pop art style. The one constant in her work is a bright color palette. She lives in a multiple cat household, all rescued strays, and is very supportive of animal rights issues. In 2003, Laura had a one woman show titled “A Cats Eye View” at SmarTArt Gallery in Tremont, Ohio. In 2013 she had a solo show titled “BubbaPalooza”. The show included 30 different artistic depictions of the same pose of Bubba, her 17 pound orange cat and art muse.
Becoming interested in public art projects around the city such as the St. Clair Superior “Year Of ” animal sculptures celebrating the Chinese New Year, she did 1 tiger (2010), 1 rabbit (2011) and 2 dragons (2012) (the second dragon was a collaboration with Gary) which are scattered around town. Two (the dragon and rabbit) were bought by East Ohio Dominion Gas Co., and can be seen at their building on East 55th.
Besides doing her own art she works with her husband Gary on multiple projects. When his comic work needs color she scans it into the computer and colors it in photoshop. They have worked as a team on many comic book projects over the years, including Harvey Pekar’s autobiographical comic “American Splendor” and promotional materials for the movie of the same name.
In 2013 the Dumms installed their 60 foot long mural entitled “A Love Letter to Cleveland” in Ohio City with the monetary assistance of a Creative Workforce Fellowship granted through CPAC/CAC. The mural paid homage to the people, places and things that make Cleveland a wonderful place to live. A second iteration of their mural was unveiled at the Michael Schwartz library inside Cleveland State University in 2020 after weather destroyed part of the previous mural.
In 2014 the couple worked on a show titled “The Fame, Shame, Blame Game”. A synergetic depiction of their rather critical views of the present wacky world in which we all live. They worked on the same canvases, contributing together what each does best. Their process was to brainstorm ideas, after which Gary begins sketching (followed by critical discussion), then he refines the drawings further and transfers those final drawings to canvas. He then handed that canvas off to Laura, who did the lion’s share of the painting. If Laura needed help tweaking something, Gary has been known to actually pick up a brush and add some color, but he quips, “If it were up to me the whole world would be done in glorious black & white!” (Ordinarily, due to his comic book duties, he works only in black & white.)
In 2014, using a similar approach, they began working on an environmental series using classic horror monsters, science projects gone wrong, to illustrate things like water and air pollution, the overuse of pesticides and the problem of bees becoming extinct! They had a solo show in 2016 at BAYarts in Bay Village, Ohio and are continuing to work on the series and show them whenever they can to promote environmental causes. This series has been a learning experience for them and showing the paintings helps to educate others about some of the immediate and long-term issues that face us in our modern world. The paintings have been in numerous shows and the series continues to grow.