President, Unity Through Creativity, Founder – the Singing Tree Project

Laurie Marshall is an educator, artist and writer who has used visual art and storytelling in consensus building, leadership training, conflict prevention and values clarification with government organizations (NASA, Department of Interior, Army Corps of Engineers), social service agencies (Hospitals, Hospices and Foster Homes) and young people from kindergarten to  college. Working with such cutting edge organizations as the Bioneers, the Institute of Noetic Sciences, the Biomimicry Institute and the Buck Institute's National Project-Based Learning Center, she is helping to write exciting art/story/nature-based curriculum for students in grades 1-12.

For thirty years, she has made murals and dramas with children of all economic levels in public, private and Waldorf-inspired schools, Her educational approach with young people is to make real products that come out of a real interest in addressing a real community need for a real audience, believing that youth have a vital role to play in current and future challenges.  The collaborative murals she's made with young people have been shown at the U.S. Senate, the United Nations, the U.S. Botanical Gardens and National Geographic.

In addition to the decades she has spent working with young people, her teaching also includes being an adjunct professor at Robert Morris in Pittsburgh, Pa., ten years at Lord Fairfax Community College in Virginia and ten years of training for Polaroid Education Program. She has served as an Artist-in-Residence in Virginia, Pennsylvania and California and has carried out projects with the Virginia Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, the American Museum of Natural History and the Smithsonian Institution.

Her artistic specialties are large scale murals, portraits and a celebration of the natural world.  Her non-profit organization, Unity through Creativity, oversees the Singing Tree Project, which has generated creation of ten murals with over 8000 people from 15 countries that uses indigenous trees as a central metaphor. Five of these murals were exhibited at the U.S. Botanical Gardens as a symbol for hope on the commemoration of 9/11 in 2002.

Laurie is the author/director of 11 plays: five films; and author/illustrator of six books.  Her website is http://www.soulemporium.com.