We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Cheryl Shanahan. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Cheryl below.
Cheryl, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Do you wish you had waited to pursue your creative career or do you wish you had started sooner?
I’m a firm believer that everything happens at exactly the right time, and I’m grateful that I didn’t come to the easel until I was in my early 50s.
When I started painting in 2020, I was working in a fast-paced, high-pressure business development role in commercial construction. I was seeking a creative outlet: something that I could control in an otherwise uncontrollable existence – an activity for me to enjoy as a means of self-expression.
I found an acrylic painting instructor nearby, and she had one opening left in her Tuesday night class. I signed up and got in eight lessons before the COVID lockdown.
Much to my delight: there was a painter who was eager to come forth!
First, my much younger self was caught up in the pointless, often joyless, pursuit of perfectionism. I was a classically-trained pianist, and in the end, I walked away from the bench in my 30s because Inner Critic kept hearing too much of what was “wrong.” It became miserable. Older Me approached painting as if the magic were going to be found in the mess. Bad art, mistakes, happy accidents were encouraged – and even vital to exploration and creative growth.
Second, I needed every bit of 30+ years of business experience to be able to treat my art practice in a professional manner. My work background was in a variety of industries in myriad roles including sales, marketing, and brand strategy. I’ve worked in hospitality, retail, wholesale/product development. At one time, I had a consulting business to support gourmet retailers. Another time, I had my own line of stationery and gift items built around my photography. Setting goals, developing budgets, creating online content, working a leads pipeline, and closing sales were all familiar to me, in a good way. I’ve been through enough business cycles – booms and busts – to know that the marketplace always rewards hard work. And, when there’s no wind – you’ve got to row.
Third: my first art clients were my professional colleagues: visually-oriented, successful people with disposable income who worked in commercial real estate, interior design, architecture. In early 2020, most people were confined at home – with nowhere to go, nothing different to see. I landed my first large commission – a 48″x48″ landscape from an industry ally who wanted a visual escape in her home. Had I started in my 20s, few – if any – of my work contacts my age would have been able to invest in a bespoke painting of that magnitude.
Finally, my mother passed away in mid-2021. She was my last living immediate family member, as my father and brother had predeceased her. Emotionally, I felt untethered – no longer defined as a daughter, caretaker, or a sister. Fiscally, I was in a position to be able to push back from the construction table, so to speak, in order to pursue my art full time, on my terms. I could not have started my studio life without everything aligning to make it possible.
My art studio officially celebrates three years of being in business in April 2025. I’m eager to see how my practice evolves in the coming decades.
Cheryl, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I’m an acrylic painter who was raised in New England. I’m a fairly private person. My paintings are a visual diary, a glimpse into the world, as seen through my eyes.
From an early age, I’ve had an affinity for creative pursuits. I was raised in a family that valued those things. There were amateur painters, sculptors, fiber artists, musicians, and photographers on both sides of the family tree. I expressed myself primarily through music, photography, and writing in my K-12 era. In college, I studied a lot of art history.
Professionally, I typically worked in sales and marketing roles in a wide range of industries. I was the sort of person who worked to live; I didn’t live to work. I didn’t ever define myself by my job title. Rather, I believed in taking the “layered life” approach: work hard, pay the bills, set some aside for retirement, invest in travel and creative outlets.
I dabbled in black and white photography, digital photography, dichroic glass, and drawing lessons. I was very consumed with building a stationery line from my image archives. That had wholesale and retail phases, even while I was working full-time. Trying new things and constantly learning are rewarding stimuli for me.
In 2020, I started exploring painting. The timing was really good, as it turned out, because – you may remember – so many things were out of our control that year. This was a pleasurable way to spend time and distract myself from the outside world.
I found everything about painting mesmerizing. I was hooked by the unctuous texture and vivid hues of heavy body acrylic paints. I delighted in mixing colors and deepening my understanding of applied color theory. I loved how forgiving the acrylics were because I could build different layers quickly. If I made a mess of things, I could keep adding layers until I got back on course.
Painting became a daily pursuit in 2022 when I was able to retire from business development in commercial construction. The daily practice is very reflexive to me: as natural and essential as breathing. I wake up thinking about value studies and color combinations. If I don’t get a brush dirty at some point in the day, I feel cranky. Making something out of nothing is a complete rush.
My husband and I split the year between Central Virginia and New Hampshire’s Lakes Region. No matter where I am, inspiration surrounds me: produce from local farms, happy cows, rusty tractors, island-dotted lakes, historic structures.
I tend to paint in three different composition levels (as I was once taught in photography class):
1. Overview: the “big picture” – the vast landscape, skyscape, or waterscape. The scene is large enough that you feel a sense of awe or reverie.
2. Portrait: Not in a figurative sense, as I do not paint people (yet). Think of it in terms of showcasing the best a barn, a boat, a bouquet has to offer.
3. Details: I like to explore the play of light on little things that usually don’t get noticed – an orange rind, petals on a zinnia, a cow’s nose.
Color influences our moods. It’s all about vibration, as far as I’m concerned, and different colors stimulate different reactions, depending on how they’re grouped together. I generally paint in four “moods”:
1. Contemplative: I’ll paint in “grisaille,” or with nothing more than black and white paint. I use a nine-value scale, from pure white to pure black. Our brains and eyes need the presence of highlights and shadows in order to process form. These paintings are the acrylic versions of black and white photos. My collectors who are drawn to them often put them in their work or home office.
2. Serenity: Our cortisol-driven lifestyles need a time out periodically. I create visual “spa treatments” by utilizing a calm, soothing analogous palette: blues, greens, yellows – which all touch each other on the color wheel. I live with my art on the wall. Our Virginia bedroom has a large lake scene from Richmond’s Forest Hill Park featuring a slate blue sky, and a mix of soothing greens and golds that mimic the early morning light. It’s wonderful to wake up to every day.
3. Harmony: I decorate my homes’ main living spaces with a primary palette of red, yellow, and blue. Paintings of Montana cloudscapes and lake scenes or oversized rabbits complement my red or blue cabinets, yellow or red dining room chairs, and blue sofas. They harmonize well together, as do secondary palettes in many of my landscape commissions. Purples, oranges, greens star in shadows, foliage, fields.
4. Excitement: I feel as if strong punches of color in my creative spaces are stimulating. I love the visual tension that is created when teal is pushed up against a bold red-orange as much as I enjoy seeing cotton candy pink paired with a sky blue or light turquoise.
After considering composition, subject matter, or mood approach, it’s all about how I get it out of my head and heart and out the end of the paintbrush.
I’m generally a studio painter who works from my own reference images – mainly because I love my creature comforts. In studio, I digitally manipulate, crop, and lightly abstract an image on my laptop before I settle on a composition and palette plan. However, cameras and computers flatten color and spatial relationships. The past two years, I’ve deliberately incorporated painting “en plen air” (outdoors) and from direct observation (indoor still life paintings) to refine my ability to see color and value shifts, as well as to improve my drawing skills. Of late, color notes and field studies stand a good chance of becoming more developed studio paintings.
I paint in a loose, representational manner. A recent epiphany was I’ve spent a lifetime chasing the feeling of a fleeting moment in a variety of media. Music paints time, if you think about it. As a classically-trained pianist, I was drawn to mood-evoking Impressionist composers, such as Debussy and Ravel. The development of photography influenced Impressionist painters, such as Monet, Manet, Cassat: they painted “snapshots” of daily life and esoteric objects. Hungarian-American photographer Andre Kertesz greatly influenced my approach to photography compositions and it continues to impact my paintings. The work of painter and art critic Fairfield Porter is a newer discovery for me. I’m drawn to his representational work and color palette in his landscapes.
Last year, I shifted from painting primarily on stretched canvases with heavy bodied acrylics to painting on panels with fluid acrylics, which are a bit more transparent. I wanted to paint faster and looser, and these materials help me achieve that. My brush strokes are getting bolder over time, and I’m not scumbling paint and blending colors as much. Rather, I am laying down intentional strokes with deliberate placement to yield a broken color look. Additionally, I use a full range of values to get my dark colors as deep and dark as possible, and then juxtapose the brightest highlights in a way to give the illusion of 3-D form with this 2-D medium.
With this approach, you optically mix elements the painting with your eyes and brain instead of my hands doing all of the work for you. I paint representationally, but I lightly abstract the subject matter into bold lines and shapes that evoke different experiences depending how close or far away you are from the painting. Optical blending is my way of hooking your attention and (hopefully) get you to stop scrolling, so to speak, and spend a little more time looking at the painting and enjoying how it resonates with you.
When I started painting five years ago, there were many times that my desire and ability were miles apart and only gelled sporadically. I feel as if in the past 18 months, I got good, fast, and consistent. I attribute that to the daily painting devotion and also for being a “learn it all” vs a “know it all.”. I show up every day to have fun pushing paint. I invest in workshops because I don’t know what I don’t know, and there’s always a good takeaway or two that I can integrate into my workflow to improve my results.
I enjoy showing my work in group and solo exhibitions with in-person openings because I get to meet other art lovers and collectors. I’m starting to book opportunities in 2027/2028 in Virginia and New Hampshire, but I’m open to venturing further afield. Insider information: a lot of times I’ll book a show featuring a theme or concept I know nothing about (example: I’ve got one coming up in late 2026 featuring trees because I don’t think I’m so great at them – yet. This commitment will force me to stay on task and figure it out before installation day! I love the pressure). Events are listed in advance on my website. If you’re in the area, come by and introduce yourself.
My animal art (specifically: bears, cows, moose) were picked up by Jackson Art Gallery and Studio in scenic Jackson, New Hampshire and it has been a wonderful experience so far, to be featured with dozens of other great local artists. In the coming year, I would like to develop a similar relationship in Central Virginia for some other of my loves (landscapes, waterscapes, still lifes).
I’m blessed with many repeat collectors. If there are any common threads between them, it would be they’re very comfortable in their own skin and extremely confident about living with bold art that evokes a nostalgic memory or provides them a visual escape and makes their living and workspace a distinctive reflection of their taste.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
In order to create with joy, I had to let go of the notion of perfectionism.
My classical piano training absolutely has something to do with this. I started playing at age 4 and began formal lessons at age 7. Recitals and competitions were an integral part of my life through high school.
I was judged on technical and interpretive aspects of compositions that I chose. It could take months for me to prepare one song for a juried recital. I classify classical music as re-creative art, and it wasn’t always well received if my interpretation was not aligned with what the judges had in mind. Elimination could come for hitting the wrong note or not finessing tones or tempo to their liking.
I got compulsive about it, and I would prop up sheet music into textbooks during math class (my least favorite subject) to go over fingering, trying to program my hands with as much muscle memory during geometry and trigonometry as possible. I’d go home after school and practice for hours on end.
In 12th grade, I started losing competitions to much younger pianists who were way more technically proficient than I was. I was good, but I realized I was never going to be great. I gave up my dreams of being a concert pianist and only played piano recreationally – and very infrequently – through college.
When I was a young working adult, my parents moved and kindly had the family piano delivered to my home at the time.
I would try playing piano after work or on weekends, and I found myself getting frustrated early and often. I had gotten incredibly rusty from lack of daily practice and instructor feedback. However, I assumed that I would be able to pick up exactly where I left off.
Instead, I would start performing a song, hit a wrong note, and then I would start from the beginning – until I hit that next wrong note, and then I would start over from the beginning again. I couldn’t get in a groove and get past the mistake. It also didn’t help that I was married at the time to someone who would point out every time he heard a wrong note.
I eventually walked away from the piano (and that marriage) altogether because it seemed more like a tortuous chore than a pleasurable pursuit.
The other contributing factor to the perfectionism pursuit involved the loss of my brother who died in a single-car accident when he was 16 and I was 18.
He was my sole sibling, and after he passed away, I felt I had to be TWICE the child to my parents – and “extra good,” given all of the suffering they had experienced. I very much felt an obligation to stay in my lane and be the “perfect” daughter to make up for their loss.
Of course, now I know that way of thinking was self-imposed and impossible to obtain.
By the time I came to painting in my 50s, I was ready to drop the perfectionism altogether. I was ready to concede that the magic can be in the mess, and that the fun lay in the process, not necessarily the outcome.
My only rules to myself when I picked up the brush in 2020 were to have fun and to accept that making bad art was a good part of the growth process.
Every “happy accident” – as painter Bob Ross often celebrated – was a foundational learning opportunity for me. There wasn’t a road map equivalent to the sheet music I had been so tied to as a piano. I was learning how to express myself without that level of structure.
Acrylic paints are so forgiving. Make a so-called mistake? Fine. Add another layer, or go down that rabbit hole and see where the outcome takes you. It may yield a color combination or composition adjustment that benefits the overall outcome.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
The most rewarding aspect of being a full-time artist for me the freedom that comes with the role.
The first sort of freedom I have is in how I use my time. The Ancient Greeks had two ways to describe time: “kronos,” which referred to specific chronological time (think in terms of our clocks, calendars, appointment books) and “kairos,” which is loosely translated to refer to an opportune time or moment. You may frame it as “puttering.”
When I worked in business development in commercial construction, a typical day was filled with meetings with owners, developers, architects, interior designers to see if my firm could earn a chance to build or renovate structures. I was very much at the mercy of deadlines, Zoom meetings, and networking events set or arranged by others. It was “kronos” time all the time, and for those who have worked in construction – they know that construction is often 24/7/365.
Living in “kairos” allows me to do what needs to get done at the right time for me.
Am I free of fulfilling obligations and meeting deadlines? No. However, thriving in flow state allows me to work in tandem with my circadian rhythm, versus fighting it. For me, Kairos Time means more joy, less stress.
My day starts when I wake up naturally, when I feel refreshed. Might be at 5:30am, could be closer to 7am. I’ll get dressed for the studio with the paint clothes du jour and get my painting apron on before I go downstairs.
As I prepared boiling water for my morning tea, I’ll journal about my studio practice or knock out the Wordle and Connections puzzles to warm up my brain.
I’ll move up to the studio anywhere between 7:30am and 9am, and I’ll jump right into painting. My inner critic tends to sleep in, as I’ve observed the past few years, and my most productive painting sessions are generally between 9 and noon, with a 10am tea break.
A “good” painting day varies:
– perhaps I’ve done value studies and the associated contrasting washes on one large canvas or two or three smaller substrates
– maybe I’ve blocked in a sky and distant mountains on a massive landscape
– I could have laid down all of the dominant neutrals and first pops of vivid color on a pet portrait
– I may have applied gesso on a dozen substrates or painted the edges on half a dozen gallery-wrapped canvases
– in warmer weather, I could have met my friends at a nearby farm to sketch out a barn or tractor and the surrounding fields
It’s never the same, but there is always visible progress of some sort, and I find I get crabby if I don’t get a brush dirty. I’ll go until the flow peters out or if I get to a good stopping point.
At the close of each session, I’ll clean my brushes, update my studio journal with notes of which paintings progressed, and I’ll lay out the painting that needs to be the star focus of the next painting session.
My energy level and focus tolerance shift after lunch, so that’s when I turn to the business side of painting. It may surprise you how much non-painting goes into a painting practice: photographing finished work to use in social media posts and on the website; update the website; place supply orders or check in orders; update inventory; respond to inquiries for commissions; initiate queries about exhibition opportunities; prepare signage and marketing collateral for exhibitions and shows.
Synopsis: I prefer being in the driver’s seat of what gets done when, vs. being at the whim of other stakeholders’ schedules. Kairos Time for the win!
Another type of freedom is the freedom to explore. I might be curious about an animal, a color palette, a style of painting. Because I paint first and foremost for me, I’m able to explore new ideas all of the time.
A few years ago, more of my revenue was tied to painting commissions. Last year, I made a conscious decision to limit the number of commissions that I would accept and narrow the window during which I would work on them in order to free up more “paint for me” time. When I paint for me, I’m free to please only myself.
We learn through experience – and we don’t know what we don’t know. Being an artist means that I am free to dwell in the space of “What if?” and “Why not?” When I’m wandering down a rabbit hole, I’m enjoying the journey without necessarily having an outcome in mind. I’m experiencing the wonder and awe of discovery unfolding before my eyes. An exploratory painting may spark inspiration for a new collection. Who knows?
Hand in hand with the freedom to explore come the freedom to fail and the freedom to embrace imperfection. The younger perfectionist version of me wouldn’t be comfortable playing in this space. So, I’m glad that I had maturity, resilience, and the ability to be kind to myself when I came to the canvas in 2020.
There’s a parable in author David Bayle’s well-known book “Art and Fear” about a ceramics class teacher who gave students the choice of how to get graded: either produce one perfect piece or 50 pounds of ceramics. The takeaway is that quantity leads to quality.
I’m trusting the process that even if I don’t always know where I’m going and what I’m going to be painting and how I’m going to be painting it: just by showing up and doing the work – both frontline (painting) and behind the scenes (office stuff), I’ll be successful in the end.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.cherylshanahan.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/artbycherylshanahan/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cherylshanahan/
- Other: https://www.threads.net/@artbycherylshanahan?xmt=AQGzQP4G2l-_cYOONmmpByIWtTUlRwOk80W4vFLZTeb_EEE
Image Credits
Cheryl Shanahan