Originally from Pittsburgh, Pa, Laurel earned a BFA (1974) in Painting and Drawing and an MFA (1977) in Painting with an academic concentration in Paleontology from the University of Cincinnati. She was an artist-in-residence on the Outer Banks of N Carolina before coming to the Department of Visual Arts at Georgia Southwestern State University in Americus, Georgia in 1978.

Laurel has been teaching drawing, painting and assorted interdisciplinary studio courses over her long career at GSW. She has been the chair of the Visual Arts Department since 2006. During summers and leaves, Laurel has taught at The Centre of the Arts at the University of Tasmania, Australia (1986), The University of Tel Aviv Overseas Student Summer Program (1988-91), studied a wide array of courses from paleoecology, Hebrew language, scientific illustration, literature to math at UCLA, University of Tel Aviv, and GSW, and for twenty years was the art director at Camp Ramah Darom in Clayton, Ga a summer camp for children ages 6-18). She has also had the honor of providing private painting instruction to President Jimmy Carter.

Laurel is represented in the permanent collections at the Cincinnati Museum of Art, the Jewish Museum and the HUC/NYU Skirball Museum in New York City, and the Macon Museum of Arts and Science. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally.