Chasing the Light | The Art of Pat Shopbell

For artist Pat “PJ” Shopbell, developing art is like striving to capture a firefly in a jar. Making an attempt to capture the ”spark” of a fleeting instant can be hard but also extremely enjoyable and gratifying. As a result of thorough composition, her viewers are led into and by means of her paintings, whilst light and colour impart a sense of mood and environment. Creating paintings that strike an emotional chord with her viewers is Shopbell’s supreme aim.

Shopbell’s paintings function prominently the cowboy region of the inland Northwest and the intoxicating magnificence of Hawaii – equally of which have an emotional link to her life. In her artwork, she captures the light-weight and magic of these vastly unique areas in beautiful and dynamic ways.

Shopbell was born and lifted in Seattle, Washington, and has always liked earning art. Her childhood fascination with horses and the ocean would shape her everyday living and art career. She acquired her to start with horse at age 10 and was a licensed scuba diver by the time she was 12. Shopbell’s mothers and fathers took her to Hawaii many times even though she was expanding up, and she fell in appreciate with the islands. Very little did she know she would conclusion up dwelling there 50 years later.

Art has been an integral part of Shopbell’s lifestyle. She arrives from a very long line of gifted artists. Her father was an particularly gifted craftsman, and her mom an achieved painter. Creating attractive matters has constantly been just a section of everyday lifestyle for Shopbell.

Shopbell has worked in different mediums in excess of the years, together with glass, stone, wooden, bronze, watercolor, oils, and leather-based. Early in her career, she apprenticed at a renowned stained glass studio, exactly where she created and built unique items and replicated painted panels for weakened cathedral windows. She went on to start off her possess stained glass firm, building one-of-a-variety art glass installations for significant-stop residences, companies, and custom sailboats.

In the course of this time, Shopbell was also portray watercolors and earning bronze sculptures. At 20, she married her substantial college sweetheart and bought a farm where by they lifted hay, cattle, and horses. She also experienced two children and adopted two extra. This demanding life-style remaining very little time for painting, but she managed to sneak a handful of in when she discovered the time.

Shopbell began earning hand-carved Western saddles and wonderful-braided cowboy horse gear as a natural extension of her enjoy of horses and art. For 30+ decades, she produced these tailor made saddles for some of the country’s top riders and horse trainers. Each and every was a special work of artwork, bas-relief sculptures of leather-based and silver.

Last but not least, in retirement, Shopbell and her partner marketed their farm and moved to the rural windward facet of the Massive Island of Hawaii. Today, they dwell in a bamboo house on the aspect of a hill overlooking the Pacific, in which Shopbell has her studio.

Shopbell’s approach is continuously evolving, and she thinks that artists by no means really “arrive.” Lifetime and art are about finding out and experimenting fortunately, you can learn as a lot from a failed attempt as from results. With substantially trial and error, Shopbell has examined and attempted to emulate the approaches of people today whose artwork she admires. Trying to determine out the “how” and “why” of terrific works of artwork is the match, and just about every painting is a puzzle to be solved, piece by piece.

Shopbell’s artwork is exceptional mainly because of her concentrate on light-weight and shadow. She generally paints a number of levels of glazes to give her paintings depth and richness. Her interest to depth and use of gentle and shadow creates a exclusive and dramatic result in her paintings.

Shopbell recently finished a triptych painting of Laupahoehoe Issue. The project was her first big-scale work, measuring 36″x 72″. She observed the project to be the two enjoyable and difficult and beloved the expertise of doing work on a large canvas. She is seeking ahead to portray far more large-scale initiatives in the future.

“Art is a language that all people communicate,” states Shopbell. “It is profoundly human. It transcends the boundaries of time and length, race and society, schooling and status.”

Shopbell feels her mission as an artist is to invite individuals into her art to check out and join in the story. She hopes her artwork will bring joy and spark the imagination. Shopbell aspires to capture even a very small glimmer of the infinite speculate of God’s creation in her art.

To perspective much more of Pat Shopbell’s art, take a look at www.pjshopbellart.com