I'm Shelley joy. I'm an artist. I consider myself a fine art artist. I've been in arts more than 25 years. I paint primarily as an abstract artist, that's my preference. I can do people and U.S. landscapes and trained and studied academically in that style but I prefer abstract art in color.
I wake up every day and I paint and I do my chosen profession, although it took a few other professions before I finally committed to painting. I started out as an actress and then I did stand-up comedy and then I got involved in film producing and then I finally returned back to my love of art and stayed there. I always painted, even when I was trying to do a film deal and it really was my first love and fit like a glove as to whom I am and what I'm interested in. So once I made the commitment to paint, I just kept at it daily and that's what you have to do, you have to make a full commitment.
As a child, you know even in kindergarten, I was better than the other classmates and then by the time I got to high school, I ended up at exhibiting and I enjoyed it and I just kept at it. I just went to an art school. I went to the Boston Museum School of Fine Arts and also I came to New York and I went to the Art Students League to paint and you know, it's good to get instruction. I was self-taught and self directed, on my own, but then it's good to be under the guidance of young master painters and teachers. I really liked my teas and I really like Picasso, and you know, I like most of the contemporary. Abstract artists are like old masters - Titian and Da Vinci.
My art is very colorful and playful, its' shapes and movement and passion. It's a little bit sensual play with colors. What gives me the most joy as an artist, is you start with a blank canvas that's a zero and you have to bring something to it. So you have to dig deep and bring yourself and the outpouring of what's inside you, onto the canvas and make it a work of art - and I like the completion of the painting. I can't really explain it. It just has its own magic it, has a spontaneity like jazz or an improvisation. It's just you lay down the colors and the shapes and you have to make it work, and turn it into a painting. So it has a rhythm and element of surprise. The color interacts with other colors, so you don't always know what it's going to do but you have control and you decide when it's art. My parents were supportive of me doing it and they finally decided that that's probably what I really want to do and that's what I should do.
Bits of advice for someone that wants to become an artist - in the beginning, if they see that they have art talent, I suggest they copy other artists to have their eye grow. Then on their own, they'll find their own inspiration. I would get with a good teacher or a good art school U.S. and then I would learn about copyrights and just how to get your work out there. It's very difficult for artists to get galleries, but that is the route they have to go. And now with the internet, they have their own gallery and window to the world U.S. where they can show their work, and exhibit it, and get exposure. But still, in terms of Commerce, a gallery is still the way to go. Even though it's a funny business, it's a high-pressure business.
I was in the gallery called Ambassador Galleries and I had submitted with Jerry Garcia from the Grateful Dead and David Bowie, so that was like rock celebrity gallery. I exhibited in the House of Representatives in Washington DC, I exhibited on Park Avenue at Lever House, I exhibited Toyo Maya Gallery, which was on 57th Street in New York, which was the Japanese gallery and you know, it was an interesting solo show that I had. One of my favorite paintings is, it's not here in this studio, but it was a mountain painting that was kind of sensual and it had a waterfall and it was sort of based on Orient Chinese art. I brought it into the contemporary realm and really made it something that nobody had done before. So I did a mountain series with, from that idea, and I really liked that.
I would like to be remembered as a great artist, a woman artist that set her goals and created and left something behind for people to enjoy and view.