Artist Shirley James
  |
|
Biography
Shirley James started her artistic endeavors with Skadron Fashion Institute and after graduating the Design program worked as an interior decorator both in the San Bernardino and Palm Springs area with a brief interlude as an assistant art instructor with Riverside County School Systems. As a decorator in the Palm Springs area, she designed furniture and filled condos with Southwestern flair.
As life happens Shirley put her art career on the back burner and worked in Human Services, the passions of art returned in 2000 and became more ardently pursued. Taking refresher courses with the local college and working in workshops with notable artists in the Mojave Desert, Shirley began exhibiting and showing garnering accolades for her art. Initially working in acrylic and pencil, her interests changed to oil painting and pyrography with colored pencil. The paintings and drawings became smaller : small format and miniatures. There is something about accomplishing art under a magnifying glass. The subjects remained in western paintings of our Western landscapes and the animal and people in West using research to authenticity in clothing and decor.
Braving her first show with a carved leather painting of Nefertiti she won first place. Continuing showing she gathered more prizes with the winner of the best representation of a Joshua Tree by the Joshua Tree National Park for their 75th Anniversary. Her line drawings of Desert plants are in the Botanical guide with the Sky's the Limit Observatory and the tortoise drawings have circulated through the California School system promoting tortoise and Desert ecological awareness.
Her pyrography drawings were part of The Andrew Art Museum in North Carolina saluting 20th Century Pyrographers and won a Puffin Foundation Grant to chronicle Joshua Trees on Joshua Tree wood and promote pyrography as a fine art. Her goal with pyrography is to continue [...]
Read the rest of this bio on the artist's website >>
Content Copyright - Shirley James Fine Art
