Deb Lawrence was born in the United States and raised in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She received her Bachelor of Arts from the University of Michigan, her Ph.D. from CWRU, and then embarked on a private, intensive course of art school study with Gerald Vandevier, professor emeritus of drawing and painting from the Cleveland Institute of Art. Her primary studio is located in the outskirts of Philadelphia, but she also maintains an active presence in New York and Cleveland. Deb Lawrence works with antique, homespun linen that was handwoven by women in the 19th century. Her highly abstract work is distinguished by its unique materiality, process, and conceptual intention. Her work simultaneously comments on three important movements in American arts: the long tradition of arts and crafts, feminist artists' appropriation of these traditionally "female" crafts for their work and, of course, the grid as an underlying basis for abstraction. Lawrence views her pieces as psychologically infused "security blankets," in which she conveys women's internal struggle to feel comfortable in their own skin while simultaneously struggling to be heard and valued in contemporary society.