Laura is an elementary school teacher in her hometown of Castelfranco Veneto, Italy (near Venice). She has two teenage sons, Filippo and Ludovico. She has a master’s degree in Modern Languages and speaks Italian and English fluidly. Laura loves fine art and has taken painting instructions from the famous Italian painter, Angelo Gatto. In 2005, her interest in the arts led her to the beaches of Jesolo, Italy, where she fell in love with sand sculpting and met her husband, John Gowdy, who was working there at a sand sculpting event. After communicating for many years, they married on the beach of Fort Myers, Florida, in 2011. In 2014, Laura and John organized and managed The World Cup Of Sand Sculpting, hosted by AC Alliance on the Atlantic City beach. On April 18, 2018, Laura and John had the honor of being invited to the Vatican to personally meet Pope Francis and donate a sand sculpture to him, which was carved inside Saint Peter’s Basilica.

Laura is from Castelfranco Veneto, Italy and has been sculpting since 2011