We recently connected with Shela Yu and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Shela, thanks for joining us today. Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?

Yes! I can proudly say that I earn a full-time living from my creative work. In all honesty, if it weren’t for the pandemic, I probably wouldn’t have taken the plunge to work full-time as an artist.

Prior to the pandemic, I was a massage therapist who believed that I could only be of service to others through direct contact. I have learned, however that there is a power to creative service; that art has a huge place in the healing of our society.

I can remember back in the Spring of 2020 when I had to shut my massage business down for many months. I spent my quarantine at home creating. Something woke up inside me that I had let go dormant for too long. It was the feeling of prolonged creative possibility. Art thrives with spaciousness. The creative spark needs room to breathe and sense without constantly being bombarded from outside stimuli. While it’s valuable to become inspired by the world around us, in order to develop ideas, we need the time alone to create. I think I got caught up over the years with social fomo. So I shut down the part of me that is actually a happy loner. The pandemic gave me an excuse not to go out and gave me a greenlight to stay inside and work on myself, my art, and my vision for my life.

What continued this forward momentum was the community around me here in Phoenix, AZ. People started to notice my work and I received positive feedback about how my designs and murals were uplifting during such an uncertain time. As I gained confidence in my skills and my work, I knew it was time to go full-time in 2021 because I felt like I cracked a creative dam inside me. I could no longer sustain my massage practice AND be an artist. My passion had to come first because it was as though a decade of pent up creative drive was waiting to be unleashed.

So although I could wish that I had pushed myself into a full-time art career when I was younger, I don’t think I would have been able to sustain what I feel like is this artistic awakening that I am currently experiencing. I was a quintessentially troubled young artist in my teens and early 20s. I dealt with challenges with my identity, deep depression, drug and alcohol abuse, suicidal ideation, and simply lacked a foundation. As I head into my mid 30s now, I have been able to find peace through the tough road by letting go of self torment and deprecation, and replacing it with true self love and worth.

Shela, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am a Chinese American muralist, painter, and designer. I think what can help readers understand my work and vision is through breaking down my moniker and Instagram handle ‘Shellshaker’.

I spent most of my life imprisoned by my body, mind, and emotions. I hated my body, I fought myself within my mind, and my emotions were erratic and unhappy. I changed my handle to Shellshaker in 2018 because I was tired of the life I had been leading. I wanted to shake things up so that I could finally change. What I didn’t realize was that it was the one thing I had ran away from my whole life that would ultimately save me– art.

I was blessed to have a mother who instilled a lot of creativity in my formidable years. She was a piano teacher and classical vocalist and made it a priority that I would take all sorts of music, dance, and art lessons. Something in me, however, never believed that I was good enough to ever really call myself an artist. It really took me finally choosing to walk the path of artistry to finally claim it as my own.

As far as what I am creating now, my work aims to continue to uplift individuals who are also on the path to their personal greatness. I often highlight Asian women in my work out of the necessity for representation. I grew up in the suburbs of Phoenix in Mesa, AZ and rarely saw faces that looked like mine depicted in media and art. I also include the many flora and fauna of the Sonoran desert as an ode to the land that held me while I grew. All in all, my work is an evolution in process. I plan to expand my creative horizons into sculpture, multi-media, and performance art.

I feel like I am just at the early stages of my life’s passion so if you’re new to me, buckle up, cause it’s gunna be a massive ride ahead.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

I am a ferocious reader and consumer of books, and podcasts about philosophy, meditation, metaphysics, quantum physics, and magic. The reason why these subjects directly effect my management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy is that we are living in a time where information is readily available and hustle culture is rampant. It’s easy to feel like we are falling short and needing to do more in order to barely get by. So getting my mind right, my purpose clear, and maintaining a metta perspective helps me to not to get caught up in the tides of what society wants of me and come back to the center of my being and uncover what is important to me and humanity as a whole. As the old adage goes, you can’t give from an empty cup, so I fill mine in many ways and often through reading and meditation.

I read and re-read Dr. Joe Dispenza’s book “Becoming Supernatural” because I loved the practical applications of the scientific research done on mind-body connection. There are meditations in the book that I use daily that help me to feel centered before I start my day. Ultimately, this book makes me feel how incredible it is to be human, that we have this gift called neuroplasticity and we all have the power to change our lives.

To connect to my ancient Chinese roots, I have been studying Taoist philosophy and occultism. When I was a teenager I considered myself wiccan/pagan and loved all things magically related, but much of my knowledge was from a western perspective. I struggled with my identity as a Chinese American in those early years and it wasn’t till later that I really discovered the beauty of Taoist and Buddhist philosophies. So I keep a copy of the Tao te Ching next to my bed now and have been slowly working through Benebell Wen’s book the Tao of Craft.

Other books that have highly influenced me are Lisa Congdon’s “A Glorious Freedom”, Kurt Vonnegut’s “Cat’s Cradle”, Thich Nhat Hanh’s “Living Buddha, Living Christ”, Anita Diamant’s “The Red Tent”, and Don Miguel Ruiz’ “The Four Agreements”.

And lastly I’ll share some of my top podcast shows with you. I have learned a great deal from some of today’s great philosophers, poets, writers, social activists, and religious leaders that are interviewed on Krista Tippet’s show On Being. A few of my favorite interviews are with Ocean Vuong, Thich Nhat Hanh (rest in peace), Suzanne Simard, Jane Goodall, Trabian Shorters, Layli Long Soldier, Nicki Giovanni and so many more. In the realm of magic I go to Glitch Bottle with Alexander Eth where he “uncorks the uncommon with magic, mysticism and the generally misunderstood”. Some of my favorite interviews on his show are with Meredith Graves, Josephine McCarthy, and Aiden Wachter, who each have their own perspectives on walking a magical path.

I also go heavy on other shows like Ted Radio Hour, Radiolab, Tim Ferris Show, Reply All, Freakonomics Radio, Code Switch, Revisionist History, and 99% Invisible.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

The most rewarding aspect of being an artist or creative is engaging with a community of like minded individuals. We artists are all different and have different backgrounds, but we all share a few common threads that I feel like are crucial to connect to.

Many artists are loners. I mentioned earlier that art thrives with spaciousness. We need space and time to create, which means lots of time alone with ourselves.

Many artists struggle with unbearable pain (often psychological). While yes, many artists rely on drugs and alcohol to ease the discomfort of life, many also lean into the therapy of art itself. That the creation process can be a healing act on its own is often powerful enough.

Many artists are weirdos. We simply see things differently. We can see many sides to a scenario, but can also create a whole different perspective.

For these reasons and more is what I think links artist to artist. And I say this is one of the most rewarding aspects of being an artist because I lived so much of my life feeling like I didn’t belong anywhere. Finding community has helped me find roots to further commit to my path as an artist.

I can also throw in that the visceral experience of bringing an idea to life through form, shape, and color, will always be wildly rewarding.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.shellshaker.shop
• Instagram: shellshaker

Image Credits
for the photo of me painting a mural with the women with a tiger mask and a baby tiger: Cultivator Content Labs , thexlife.co