Artist | Featherpistol | Resides | United States |
Website | featherpistol.com | Mediums | Performance Art Video Art Photography |
Print Shop | saatchiart.com/featherpistol | [email protected] | |
Follow the Artist | Instagram | Facebook | Vimeo | Themes | Rituals Divine feminine Wild Woman Sound Healing Mythology: Oracles, Witches, Priestesses Nature Earth Worship Spirituality Ecological Revolution |
Press | featherpistol.com/musings |
About the artist
Lauralynn Featherpistol is an eco-feminist, performance artist and sound healer. Her art is centered around earth worship, ritual pole dance and sacred sound. She lives in the Sierra Mountains with her husband and chocolate spotted dalmatian.
“Feather” is an International Artist in Residence for Supperclub Amsterdam and has performed her art at dinner theater shows, circus shows, pop-up events, Vegas nightclubs, casinos, fundraisers, festivals and theater productions. She is excited to be the creator of “Pole for the Globe”, an initiative that raises money for earth charities by performing in nature with a bevy of other artists. To date, this project has donated over $9,000.00 to charity. Join the movement at patreon.com/polefortheglobe
Early on, growing up in Minnesota, her family took trips into the woods for hunting and fishing expeditions. Her father taught her how to catch a fish, shoot a bow, play cards and bowl. She was an eternal tomboy growing up. But she found her feminine voice eventually when the idea of actually shooting a deer felt awful to her. She had to tell her dad she couldn’t join him on this. He said “honey, you don’t have to shoot a deer, it’s a hard thing to do, a lot of people can’t do it or won’t do it for many reasons”. In this moment she felt closer than ever to her dad, and she was relieved. Her father passed away in 2023 and to this day Featherpistol feels strongly that he is with her whenever she’s in the woods. This is also why the deer archetype is such a big part of her performance art.
Today, Feather considers herself a middle aged activist artist. She stages eco-femme pole art performances, photoshoots, installations and video shoots to express her critique of this plastic-riddled world. At 43, she has followed her passion for travel, art and knowledge and lived all over the world – and is now quite happily settled in Tahoe with her little family. Having resided in Los Angeles, Florence Italy, London and San Francisco, Featherpistol has explored many places and is now quite content to be living in the mountains. Every once in a while she’ll return to the city to visit museums, see performances, and perform in underground cabaret shows.
When she performs, she blends her passion for music and sound healing with her training in martial arts, acrobatics, sensual dance, art history and runway modelling to create a unique style.
During her formative years, an education of studying art history at the University of Southern California with a focus in Art Conservation, followed by a Fulbright Fellowship in Florence, Italy at the Uffizi Gallery infused her with knowledge about art and art history. She loves to bring that knowledge to her performance characters. She has also studied at the San Francisco Circus School and has a credential from the California Institute of Integral Studies in Sound, Voice and Music Healing. Ever thirsting for knowledge, she is an alumnus of Sotheby’s Institute of Art (Art Business 2016) and became an Accredited Member of the International Society of Appraisers (ISA AM 2018). Being an art appraiser and performance artist is just the right fit for her curious soul. Featherpistol is a working class artist.
Artwork Themes & Subject Matter
Featherpistol stages pole art performances, photoshoots, and video shoots to express her critique of this plastic-riddled world. She attempts to bring awareness to the plastic crisis, give people a community where they can combine forces and make an impact, and try to discuss the constant, chronic stress of the ecological situation we are in. She also focuses on worshipping the earth, calling out to ancestors for guidance, sound healing and equal rights for all humans. Lately, Featherpistol been creating a Laser Goddess series, about a group of goddesses whose powers are activated by the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Their lasers are now “on” and they are using them to protect Planned Parenthood Centers across the United States.
Press
A lot of Featherpistol’s work is done as one-of shows, video shoots, photoshoots and events so there’s not been many big press articles. However, when she was living in SF she was hired to be in a show called Sweet Talk in Tahoe and she was also on a podcast with Allie Stark a few years ago.
CV
Education
During her formative years in the midwest, Featherpistol was always pulling art towards her wherever she could. There wasn’t much encouragement to pursue art as a career in the 80s and 90s in Minnesota, but she kept drawing, sketching, and painting in art classes as much as possible. In 7th grade she won 1st place in the Drawing category at the Minnesota State Fair art contest. She also studied the art of fashion and played in high school sports. Although she won “Dancing Queen Runner Up” in High School, her formal education in art and fascination with performance activism came in college.
She has an education in art history and chemistry from the University of Southern California with a focus in Art Conservation, where her favorite art history classes by far were the Modern & Contemporary, Feminist, and Land Art lectures. She’s also was a member of Take Back the Night at this time, a mere hint of where her artistic and activist career would take her.
This was followed by a Fulbright Fellowship in Florence, Italy at Institute of Applied Physics (Istituto di Fisica Applicata) in collaboration with the Uffizi Gallery. During this time she began studying Kung Fu five nights a week at an Italian Kung Fu and Tai Chi School in Florence.
Returning from Italy and bursting with the need to make art instead of standing in a science lab, she became a personal trainer and started training her body more seriously in Circus Arts. She took pole dance classes, aerial classes, and contortion lessons six days a week. She studied at the SF Circus School with acrobatic coach Dominik Wyss. Adding to her high spirit for performance art is her fascination with sound/music/vibration and its healing properties. This led to an additional credential from the California Institute of Integral Studies in Sound, Voice and Music Healing (San Francisco, CA).
All of this led to more tools for Feather’s purpose: to express the human condition through performance and activism. Knowing the performance art wouldn’t pay the bills, she later went on to study at Sotheby’s Institute of Art (Art Business/London) and became an Accredited Member of the International Society of Appraisers (ISA AM). Her career as an art appraiser allows her to create performances, photos, videos and installations from her unique visionary perspective. Her appraisal practice is successful, and she learns more about the evolution of art and craft every day. The two practices feed the two different parts of her brain, and being a part of Beautiful Bizarre feels like finding a “home” after years of wandering solo.
Education Bare Bones:
Art Appraising: ISA Core Course in Appraisal Studies, Fine Art Specialty Course, and Requalification Course
Sotheby’s Institute of Art: Art and Its Markets
Sound Healing Certificate California Institute of Integral Studies
Sheila Kelley’s S Factor Pole Dance Instructor Certification
Russian Kettlebell Certification
National Academy of Sports Medicine Certification
Fulbright Fellowship: Italian Art Conservation Science
Bachelor of Arts in Chemistry & Art History