Name: Tamara LaValla
Title: Instructor of Art and Design
Education: B.F.A., Syracuse University
Office: 226 McLaurin
Email: lavallat@winthrop.edu
Web: tamaralavalla.com
Area(s): Design and Illustration
Tamara LaValla is an eternal artist, and once-upon-a-time chocolate maker, who came
of age in a parochial Italian village in the belly of central New York. During high
school, Tamara was selected to attend the wildly immersive NYS Summer School of the
Arts, where her work secured space in a permanent Albright-Knox collection. LaValla
earned her BFA in Illustration from Syracuse University and gained inclusion into
the Society of Illustrators esteemed 37th Annual of American Illustration and exhibition
in NYC. Upon graduation, Tamara moved to the Carolinas putting her degree to work
as an award-winning Senior Artist for The Herald newspaper.
In 2003, LaValla co-founded a multidisciplinary design firm which evolved into the
present-day Social Design House. The following year, Tamara launched “Up,” a gallery,
store and custom frame shop, that featured work from local, regional and international
artists for nearly a decade. In the late-2000s, Tamara proudly served as an Artists
U facilitator for the SC Arts Commission, traveling the state to help fellow artists
build balanced, sustainable careers. In addition to leading creative retreats around
the world, and beyond her dedication to the classroom, and a smoldering studio practice,
Tamara can routinely be found putting the wander — and wonder — back in her lust...Tamara has been an Instructor in the Department of Design at Winthrop University for
the last two-plus decades.