Nancy Staub Laughlin brings a thoughtful touch to both her mediums—pastel and photography—and makes them work in harmony rather than in competition. With a BFA from Moore College of Art in Philadelphia, she has steadily built a career rooted in careful observation and a dedication to process. Her work has been exhibited throughout the East Coast and is part of various public and private collections. She’s also been featured in interviews and art press coverage over the years. Art historian Sam Hunter once called her work “refreshingly unique,” a phrase that continues to apply.
Laughlin doesn’t treat photography and drawing as separate disciplines. For her, they’re parts of a larger whole. She often begins with a photograph—sometimes taken in her garden, other times from natural surroundings—then integrates that image into a pastel composition. What emerges isn’t quite a collage, and it’s far from traditional landscape work. Instead, it becomes a layered visual space with its own quiet rhythm.
Take “The Anticipation of Spring Allure” (22 x 58 inches), where a photo of a dewy dahlia shimmers with sunlight. To get the effect, Laughlin sprayed the flower with water, capturing light like snowfall in bloom. She surrounds this moment with a pastel world of zinnias and a fading winter. The piece doesn’t resolve one season over the other—it lets them coexist. The blend of stillness and emerging warmth feels intentional, but not rigid. The work draws you in slowly.
She’s not interested in fast impressions. Her work settles in the viewer’s mind by staying in transitional spaces—between winter and spring, sea and land, surface and depth. Light is a key player. So is color. She keeps her palette soft, creating a sense of openness rather than pressure. The pastels she uses don’t scream for attention—they hum quietly and let you listen in.
In “The Blossoming of Froth” (31 x 55 inches), water and land meet again, but this time with a twist of dream logic. Sea foam rises up and turns into flowers. Ocean spray seems to shift into something you could almost touch. It’s not meant to mirror the world exactly. It’s more about how the world might feel at its most lush and suspended. Laughlin builds this not through abstraction or chaos, but through careful layering and balance.
That balance is one of her strongest traits. Even in work that deals with movement and change, like “The Transition to Spring” (24 x 33 inches), she gives the viewer a place to stand. This piece also blends photography and pastel, using light and shape to create a space that’s less about scenery and more about atmosphere. Laughlin herself describes her aim as drawing viewers into her world of “color, light, dimension, and beauty.” That’s not a tagline—it’s an honest goal. Her process is slow and intentional, guiding each element until it feels right.
Laughlin isn’t trying to surprise you. She’s not after cleverness or bold twists. Her work stands out because it’s steady and generous. The photographs she begins with are personal, often from familiar surroundings, and the pastels are built to complement rather than dominate them. She brings precision, but leaves room for feeling. Her compositions are clean without being sterile—layered without being crowded.
What you’re left with is work that feels like a pause. A moment between things. Nature is present, but softened. Imagination is there, but it doesn’t take over. There’s care in every corner of the canvas.
Laughlin’s work stays with you because it’s not trying to make a case. It invites you to slow down and see how much can live in the quiet space between one season and the next.
