by LUKE PUTVIN
Kelly Shipp
Kelly Shipp’s “Hatching Harold” is located at KidsPark, a day care center on Alderwood Mall parkway.
“For me, I think art is community. It’s a way of expressing a feeling or an idea, and sharing that with others,” Shipp said. Shipp always doodled and sketched, but in 2013 she got a chronic illness and eventually had to stop working full-time in 2015. Art became something she could do at home, and it gave her a sense of purpose. Taking her first pottery class in late 2016, she decided she needed her own studio. With her partner, they converted an old building in their backyard, and now she has a full studio. “I love ceramics,” she said. “I find my brain works better in 3D than 2D mediums.”
Shipp spent a lot of time on Hatching Harold. She loves to make monsters, so she had a rough idea of a monster coming out of a dragon egg. She knew that she wanted the egg to be textured. This was a big deal because she had never made a piece like this before. She found thick, large balloons online and used them to create the basic, flat egg shape. She spent two more sessions adding all the scales and let the egg dry for several days.
She then cut the top off the egg, hand built Harold on the original balloon frame, and put the cut shell back on top. The piece dried for a full month before the first firing. Then, she hand painted the glaze and put the piece in for the final fi ring. She estimated she spent at least 25 hours on Hatching Harold. “I get pretty fond of my pieces, since I spend so much time with them, and I miss having him in the studio,”
Shipp said. Shipp’s advice to aspiring artists, “I think the best advice I can give is that: one, it’s never too late to start, and two, don’t let what you think other people will want decide what you want to make.”
To see more of Kelly Shipp’s work, visit her website at www.HappyUnicornMonster.com.
Raniere
“Cyborg Eggsistence” from Raniere is located at Around the Table Game Pub, a game store and hangout place for game lovers of all ages.
Raniere is the Director of the Creative Arts Department for the Imagine Children’s Museum and has worked there for 14 years. She is also an avid volunteer.
As a recycled materials artist, she makes her work from discarded materials that once served another purpose. She recalled a time from fourth grade when her teacher brought in a large bag of trash. The teacher had a contest for who could make the best litter bug using the trash she brought. This particular event inspired Raniere, and she started becoming serious about creating art in the 2000s.
“I really liked the idea of doing an egg hunt. For all of us in our community to have fun searching for eggs, going into places we may not have been in before, or learn about organizations in our community that are there should you need help,” Raniere said.
Once she had her idea of Cyborg, she went through all her bins, boxes and drawers looking for things and matching them up. It took Raniere a month to work out the bumps with creating a cyborg head out of a ten-inch plastic egg. She thought it would be better to screw things on than to use glue, but screwing these items into a plastic egg wouldn’t secure them well enough. She eventually put high-quality glue all over a screw and then screwed it in. “Worked like a charm,” she said.
She called Eggs-plore, “an opportunity to meet fellow artists and an opportunity for shy artists to be encouraged by other artists.”
When asked for advise for aspiring artists, she said, “Just have fun when you’re creating. I am not a cyborg enthusiast, but for some reason I wanted to make one. Try. You learn so much from the process.”
