Photography Beyond the Classroom

by Kate Engstrom

After nearly two decades at Lawrence Academy as a teacher, advisor, and Winterim leader, Laurie McGowan is retiring. She began teaching photography on campus in 2006, after running Winterim trips while her husband, Paul Schlotman, taught at LA. She brought an expertise in freelance photography and had previously taught the art form in a variety of settings in New York and New England.

At Lawrence, Laurie designed a multimedia course to add to the art department’s offerings and coordinated the school’s yearbook for 15 years. She often took her classes off campus to give her students access to fresh subject matter for their assignments. “I always tried to break down those walls to see what is going on out in the world in the arts,” she says. For the last two years, Laurie’s honors students participated in artist Geloy Concepcion’s Instagram project “Things You Wanted to Say But Never Did” by using his prompt to inspire their own photos and text. She believes “the class saw it as a way to use the power of photography to express what is actually going on in their lives.”

Some of Laurie's favorite moments at LA are from her time spent as a Winterim leader. The trips she led were “so eye-opening for students — taking away their phones, seeing them interact … laughing, learning, having fun in a brand-new environment.” A trip to Morocco, in particular, stands out because it helped the students realize “the world is a smaller place now.”

Laurie will not be far from Lawrence Academy’s art community in her retirement, as she will continue to serve as director of the Conant Gallery. In addition, she will continue to exhibit her own work in many galleries, as well as in places such as the Fitchburg Art Museum and on the Monadnock Art Tour this fall. She will also launch the La Collina Artist Residency (lacollinaart.net) in Tuscany in March and be working toward Irish citizenship to honor her family’s ancestry.