For 35 years, Author, Innovator and Artist Laurie Marshall has empowered youth and adults through creative collaboration. She practices Peace Building through Art, inspired by Nature. A visionary educator, she has served mostly low-income children, families and their schools as an Arts Integration and Project Based Learning specialist. Her mission is to nurture creativity, a love of learning and a collaborative spirit.  She is the founder of Unity Through Creativity Foundation and the Singing Tree Mural Project.  This project is an invitation for the whole world to create a painting together, envisioned by an 8 year old girl in 1999.  So far, 142 murals have been made by over 25000 people from 52 countries.  The mutualism of trees and forests are the inspiration for humanity to collaborate in this international mural project.

Clients have included NASA, FEMA, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Department of Interior, the U.S. Botanical Gardens, as well as public schools, hospitals and prisons around the United States. After 15 years in California, she now lives in El Paso, Texas with her husband, Tom West, where she is a member of the El Paso Quaker meeting.  She is also a member of the Rotary Club of World Peace. Her two grown sons, Jeremy and Daniel Slack,  live in El Paso and Austin,  respectively.