Laurel Burch

Laurel Burch (December 31, 1945 – September 13, 2007) was an American artist, designer and businesswoman.

She was born Laurel Anne Harte in the San Fernando Valley, California, on New Year's Eve, 1945. Though Laurel's parents Ann and Russell Harte divorced, Ann a seamstress and designer provided for her two daughters, Suzi and Laurel as a single mom. A rift however grew between Laurel and her mother when Laurel was a teenager. She lived for a period with her father but that ended abruptly. She supported herself by working as a cook, house cleaner and baby-sitter

When she was 19 she married a jazz musician, Robert Burch. They parted after a few years together, Laurel becoming a single mom herself with two children to care for. She supported herself by claiming welfare payments and making jewelry and occasional help from Ann. Like her mother she also made outstanding dolls and sewn art. The background to this textile gift was a curious aspect of Laurel's childhood. Her mother was seamstress and designer for the singer Peggy Lee and her daughter. Ann described a strange moment where she had spent weeks shopping for shoes, ribbons, hat, fabrics to make an Easter outfit for Peggy's daughter. She sewed all night before Easter morning and drove the beautiful outfit to Peggy's home in Beverly Hills dragging Laurel and Suzi out of bed before daybreak. As she returned to the car seeing her girls knowing they had no Easter outfits waiting for them, their hair all messy with sleep and Ann was heartbroken. One can acknowledge there was the love there and the grief of a single mum. Laurel grew up with a mixture of love and loss, but also with a keen brilliant artistic eye from her parents.

Burch went on to launch her business, now called Laurel Burch Artworks, in February 24, 1960. She began making paintings and was commissioned by restaurants, businesses and private collectors. "I found metal in a junkyard and hammered it out on the back of an old frying pan", she stated during an interview with the Marin Independent Journal in 2005.

She began making jewelry and selling it on the streets of San Francisco from tackle boxes. Some local stores began stocking her creations, and a businessman, Shashi Singapuri, took samples of her work to China. She went to China in 1971 and discovered cloisonné, a kind of enamel work, with which she designed paintings and had the designs made into earrings.

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