Sharon Shaver

My extraordinary 8th grade art teacher introduced me to modern art concepts, turned me loose with oil paints and canvas and helped me get a painting in a student art show at SAM. He lived on in my head, cheering when I became a student at the Art Institute of Chicago. Years later he smiled his approval when I showed my paintings at galleries in Cincinnati, Ohio and NYC, and the Columbus Ohio Art Museum. More recently, I felt him cheering when I joined the VALISE artists’ collective on Vashon Island, where I’ve shown my work the last few years.

Animals, fish, mountains, humans and trees almost always make appearances in my paintings, the humans usually much smaller in relationship to everyone else than in ‘real life.’ Years of living in Alaska where humans are few and salmon and bear, moose and old-growth forests are plentiful taught me to see differently.