Born and raised in New York City, Laurie Zagon received her Master of Fine Arts degree from Syracuse University and her undergraduate degree from the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. As a fine arts professor at City University of New York for 14 years, she taught design, color and light theory, and painting. For more than 40 years, Laurie has facilitated Art & Creativity for Healing workshops. Using her method of Art4Healing®, she has helped tens of thousands of children and adults process stress, illness, grief and fear in hospitals and nonprofit community organizations throughout Southern California and the U.S. Laurie founded Art & Creativity for Healing in Orange County in 2000 and thus far has trained and certified (through her partnership with Brandman University-Chapman University System) more than 250 facilitators in the Art4Healing® method and facilitated workshops for more than 85,000 children, teens and adults. She is proud that the workshops are free of charge to community nonprofit partners through grant applications and believes the secret of their success is “giving, giving and more giving.”
“Seeing the shelter children’s excited little faces when we hand them a box full of new art supplies, and they ask, ‘Do we get to keep these?’ is the true reward of giving.”
– Laurie Zagon