Friday, February 1, 2008

Studio Visit: Shelby Donnelly

Shelby is a second year fibers grad, we share a studio space and she is pretty awesome. She is experimenting with materials and image, she works with a small budget using materials that everyone has access to. Most recently, aluminum foil and garbage bags as well as adapting traditional techniques to suit her need, such as dying paper in boiling water acid dye or using insect screening to create monumental sculptures. And I asked her the same questions:


What are you working on?
Getting over mental hurdles. I am making the hands of God and a very tall column with a female bust at the top....a sort of futuristic caryatid that is trying to touch God's hand. I am working on creating and epic myth about the struggle to be better, to exist, to love....

What are you excited about right now?
Anxiety and excitement are never far apart. The future. Human nature. Body contact. Making feelings visable. [blankness] Creating 3d form. Silver. Noises that I cant recognize. Magic invading the realm of the real. Erasers.

What is your favorite food?
Right now Cuban food. It has fish, fruit, beans, rice and the best alcoholic drinks. It feels food to eat when cold and needing sunshine.

The ribbon ladder and shadow:

In progress sculpture:

Drawings, dyed paper, sewing, collage:

The new sewing machine, equipped to sew aluminum foil and trash bags all day long:
A drawing, hung on the wall of her studio...Shelby comes from a 2d background, she has her BFA in printmaking and makes a lot of beautiful drawings:


1 comment:

JenMarie said...

when you say that you share a studio space with so and so...what do you mean? are tylers graduate studios not private? do you share spaces? or do you get an individual room to your self? can you expand on that? I am looking into to Tyler for grad school for painting...and I am curious to see what you have to say about the studios. Thanks, and hope to hear from you. Any words of wisdom or criticism would be helpful!