“I always want to keep learning!” exclaims Shawn Campbell, an experienced sculptor with a studio in Milford, NJ. She is all about the future. “I have to evolve,” she says.
You can tell from the enthusiasm and energy in her voice that she enjoys pursuing what is new and that the search for the next thing is fulfilling for her and not scary. She says she often begins making one of her fired clay sculptures with only the simplest of drawings
“For instance, I might know I have to explore hands and what incredibly versatile tools they are and how expressive they are. I know that much when I am going into the piece, but then with my hands in the clay I find out where I am going with the idea.”
Shawn wasn’t always a clay artist. As a young child, she won a prize ribbon in a California county fair for a cartoon strip she drew. “My father was an incredible cartoonist all his life and he taught me to draw, and he encouraged me. I took the usual high school art classes but I also just had to take metalwork and woodwork. I have to know how to do things, how things get made!”
Her relentless curiosity has influenced her art career. She began by painting but said it wasn’t always a joy because she felt she had to paint “perfectly,” and that was constricting.
When a young man in her extended family died, she experienced profound grief. A teacher encouraged her to work with clay and she started taking classes at the Baum School. She found the more she worked with clay the more the grief lifted, and she felt lighter.
“I’d encourage anyone who is coping with grief to work with clay. First of all, what is more basic and natural than clay? It’s primal. You get in touch with some natural force.”
Her own work can be realistic but highly expressive. You can feel how she is in touch with nature. The hair of her figures may take flight as birds, or the arms may become tree limbs. This isn’t airy-fairy whimsy. While she is creating something surreal, she also has to be engineering so her construction will support itself and not slump in the kiln’s ferocious heat. This is where her passion to find out how things are made and what makes things work pays off for her.
“I had a career in operations management, and everything was mapped out. Now, I want a less goal-oriented life.” Her advice to those who think they can’t create? “Stop thinking and begin. Get a piece of clay and just begin. So what if your first piece is bad. Mine was!”
Campbell can spend hours alone in her studio “but the Arts Council has led me to such cool people. And new friends! Plus, I get a lot of ideas from being part of it.” Her work has won awards, most recently the top award for sculpture at the prestigious Phillips’ Mill Annual Juried Art Show.
In “Her Hands,” (2023), Shawn Campbell wanted to express all the wonderful things her mother’s hands have done for her children. Her hands were always busy helping and making. Their beauty, as well as their love-giving, lodged in the sculptor’s mind.
“My Beloved” 2023 by Milford-based Shawn Campbell is the sculptor’s take on Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, with wings of hands. Learn more about her work at www.shawncampbellartist.com.
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