Throughout her nomadic upbringing, multimedia artist Laura Konecne learned how to carry her life in portable bits and pieces. She keeps fragments of “home” inside her carry-ons, within her collapsible wooden studio setup, among the comforts of her engraved chisels, in the pages of her 14-year-old sketchbook—and especially in the memories she takes with her of the communities she leaves behind.
From artist exhibitions to temporary studio jobs, Konecne moved across the U.S. six times in a decade, leaving behind makeshift mini-homes in the cities she briefly inhabited. As natural as the cycle felt at the time, by 2023, she needed somewhere to plant her roots—then she found fertile ground in South Texas soil.
“This is the longest we’ve been somewhere in 10 years,” she said. “It’s really cool to actually have a home base where we can build something as opposed to setting up temporarily, always ready to move onto the next place.” Splitting her childhood between Honolulu and Pyeongtaek, South Korea, Konecne has always known movement. After earning her BFA in sculpture from the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, she dove headfirst into life as a wood and metal work studio artist and as a devoted partner. Following this path meant following opportunities, for both herself and partner Nate Ditzler, across studios, residencies, job titles and state lines, all while she continued to build a diverse body of work defined by precision, patience and the manipulation of space.
Now settled into a studio at K Space Contemporary, thanks to an early connection made with fellow K Space artist Gerald Lopez, Konecne feels grateful to have both a creative community and a place to call home, as she continues on her work as a sculptor and her newest brightly abstract paintings.
“There are a lot of people in the Corpus art community,” she said, “but there are a few specific people who work so hard to make it into something special. There’s something here that you can actually invest in and regularly participate in because so many people do the legwork.”
Growing up, Konecne’s parents valued a sense of home and belonging. Her family split equal time between her father’s roots in Hawai’i and her mother’s family in South Korea, ensuring she never grew up feeling othered. “I always grew up in a place where I was surrounded by a lot of different kinds of people, but also people that looked like me,” she remembered. “I was never the odd man out. I never realized how much they thought about that.”
Though both parents worked in the military, artistry never felt far from reach. Konecne fondly remembers the time spent in her mother’s craft business and her father’s love for practical woodworking. The line seems easy to connect from here, but Konecne’s paths took a few more twists before settling on her now-famous wood and steel Voronoi beans.
Konecne spent much of her college years working in metalsmithing, drawn to the medium’s roughness and the studio environment. However, as she began to take notice of Hawai’i’s tropical trees and the availability of rare woods, woodworking soon caught her attention. Her interest in mixed media eventually led to her first completed sculpture, “Independence,” a marble head sliced open to reveal a bronze miniature folding chair nestled inside a cut of lychee wood.
It was a home run on the first try. The State of Hawai’i purchased the piece, marking the first time she completed, showed and sold an original sculpture—all within her home state.
She often uses the word luck when describing her career.
“I made a lot of great work in college and got to do more than most people did because of luck,” she explained. “In the timing, the place and mentors that most people didn’t have available to them. I was in my program at a time when there were a lot of other people who really cared. We had 20 [students] who never wanted to leave the studio, leaving windows unlocked so we could get more time in there.
“It was a community of emerging artists that really wanted to work,” she continued. “I got lucky with that.”
Luck, hard work, what she jokingly calls “annoying overconfidence,” and her ability to make quick connections complete the equation to her success. Years of moving taught her to build community quickly, jumping at opportunities and creating connections wherever she lands.
Lopez, seeing her enthusiasm for her work and for meeting new community members, introduced her to the center of the city’s arts scene. Today, she works alongside fellow K Space studio artists and regularly exhibits in the gallery’s downstairs space. Lopez also connected her with work as an art handler, where she now helps install exhibitions across the country.
With a home base slowly taking shape in Corpus Christi, Konecne continues to lead a busy creative life—only this time with a steadier footing. Between traveling for exhibitions, installing shows, teaching virtual art classes and carving new sculptures in both her K Space and home studios, her schedule remains full.
The difference now is, for the first time in years, Konecne has a place she can confidently call home, and settle into at the end of long days, weeks, months—and, hopefully, years.
