In the Colonel Robert H. Morse Library students, faculty, and community members gathered for the unique opportunity to see Laura Basha ’73’s work up close. The event highlighted Basha’s recent donation to the Beloit College Archives: eight intricate digital prints of her paintings on 30 by 40 inch pieces of goat-vellum which are featured in her 2024 book “All Is Chosen.” Basha is an artist, author, and the founder of Whitebird Rising, a community to help members live a “transformative lifestyle.”

Basha grew up in Boston and was the first in her family to attend college. She earned a full scholarship to Beloit College, where she felt at home among the New England-style architecture. At Beloit, she found an influential mentor in her painting professor, Thaddeus Suits, who encouraged her work, nominating her for a fine arts seminar in London her freshman year.

After graduating from Beloit, Basha joined the ministry, studying under Reverend Kathryn Jarvis, who became her spiritual leader and lifelong friend. She also obtained a PhD in clinical and organizational psychology. Her spirituality and background in psychology deeply affect her art and its meaning. According to Basha, humans are made of four archetypes, but one is the strongest. Every painting represents a different archetype, and viewers are meant to see themselves represented within the work.

Finding one’s true essence is at the core of Basha’s work.

“There are two energies in the universe. One is fear and one is love. Love is the greater, but fear is noisy and loud,” she says. “Anger, righteousness, intimidation … Those are all things that keep us constrained and blind to who we really are, which are these possibilities of magnificence and greatness.”

She aims to point people in the direction of love through her work by finding the ways in which humans are all connected, and transcending attachment to fear in order to embrace a formless self. “Love is really the harmonizing cohesive element of the universe. It’s what keeps it all together,” Basha says.

The paintings in “All Is Chosen” explore what it means to be human, helping viewers learn more about themselves and connect with their true essence. Their inspiration came from The Book of Kells in Ireland, a medieval handmade book made from goat-vellum. “I just got really inspired by The Book of Kells. The quality was extraordinary, the attention to detail, the perfection, wasn’t specifically stated, but you could see it,” says Basha.

Throughout the event, Basha responded to questions from the participants curious to learn more about her creative process. Basha donated these pieces to the Beloit College Archives to continue connection and conversation. As part of its collection, the prints will be accessible to the public.

These pieces – intersections of art, psychology, and the imagination – are a continuation of Basha’s journey that began at Beloit College, and the beginning of current students’ exploration into the self which will inspire for years to come.