Cara Lawson-Ball
Edwardsburg, Michigan
Sculptor, painter, business owner, canoe guide, hiker, forever learner, can’t be stiller.
Message
Artist Bio – Cara Lawson-Ball
Michigan artist Cara Lawson-Ball creates bronze sculpture and multimedia paintings inspired by her deep appreciation of the Great Lakes region and its inhabitants. Through the use of imagined line, strong color, and layered abstraction, her work invites viewers to linger in the wild places—both in the landscape and within ourselves.
Cara’s abstracted oil and cold wax paintings emerge from quiet, immersive experiences of hiking and canoeing in the northern United States. These works reflect a meditative connection to nature, where fleeting impressions of light and form become layered memory on Birch panels. Her bronze sculptures, by contrast, often focus on the theme of human connection, with a particular emphasis on community and inclusion.
For decades, Cara explored both the female form and native animals in her work, but her current practice reaches more broadly—toward inner landscapes, shared experience, and the restorative power of belonging.
Her award-winning work is included in private, public, and institutional collections throughout the U.S. and Canada, with commissions in numerous state, local, and private spaces. Cara earned a BFA in Sculpture from Indiana University, with additional study through the Oxbow School of Art affiliated with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Statement
Artist Statement – Cara Lawson-Ball
Spending time in nature offers a kind of clarity I rarely find elsewhere. When I’m outdoors—hiking along northern trails or drifting silently across inland waters—my thoughts begin to untangle. It’s in these quiet, extended moments that the next body of work begins to form, thread by thread.
In recent years, my work has shifted from a longstanding focus on the female form to a broader exploration of landscape, memory, and belonging. My abstracted oil and cold wax paintings are rooted in these slow journeys through the natural world. Fleeting color impressions—seen in swipes of sky, field and water—become meditative layers of texture and light. These pieces are not literal depictions, but distilled memories that ask us all to pause and connect.
With my figurative bronze sculptures, I turn inward again, exploring the essential human need for connection and community. These works are less about individual identity and more about shared experience—places of refuge, strength, and inclusion.
My influences are diverse and ongoing. The ephemeral installations of Andy Goldsworthy, the elegant simplicity of Max Leiva’s figures, and the honesty of poets like Billy Collins and Gwendolyn Smith Patterson all feed my practice in unexpected ways.
Ultimately, I want to create work that speaks to the quiet, powerful places—within us and in the world—where we feel most present and most human.