ShawArt on ImageKind.com!

I am really jazzed to announce that you are now able to purchase selected works of mine on ImageKind.com!  Please take some time to browse through !




Best, CM Shaw
www.shawart.com

Viva Cuba's Chair-itable Auction May 10th!!!

Friends, Art Lovers, Sons & Daughters of Cuba, Missouri,

My hand painted chair will be featured along with several other regional artist’s creations benefiting the Viva Cuba Chair-itable Auction! “Something to Crow About” is currently on display at Peoples Bank of Cuba’s Highway 19 location in my beloved hometown of Cuba, Missouri until May 10th. It will be displayed at the Cuba Chamber of Commerce Banquet for an evening of great food, people, and coming together for the benefit of our great city of Cuba, Missouri, historic stop along the legendary Route 66 on April 25th.

Join me at Cuba Wal-Mart on May 10th from 9AM to 1 PM for the final bidding on these handcrafted creations, where Wal-Mart will match the donations up to $1,000.00 for Viva Cuba’s city beautification projects and maintenance of our nationally recognized city murals (see http://www.crawfordco.com/murals/ on the world-wide web).

Thank You for your generous civic pride in our Great City of Cuba, Missouri!
Viva Cuba!
Colin Michael Shaw
www.shawart.com

ShawArt Now Showing at Peppertini's!

Hey People-

My installation of paintings at Peppertini’s Piano Bar & Grill is IN PLACE. Check out their menu at peppertinispianobarandgrill.com – GOURMET is the only word, Friends! Special thanks to owner Matt “Rebel” Jones & Executive Chef Matthew Dawson for getting me in place at the establishment & on the website so quickly. I am honored to have my work in the same room as Mr. Jones’s paintings- see his artwork on the website! I can’t say enough in describing what a great place this is- I love it! Treat yourself to Peppertini’s expertly crafted & nicely priced menu, live entertainment, and cozy ambiance soon:

Peppertini’s Piano Bar & Grill
79 Forum Shopping Center
Chesterfield, MO 63017

Two Sisters

I stole this idea from a seductive little pop song I heard last summer. One recent Saturday night, I finally committed to crafting a painting out of this crazy song- the sheer farce of it deserved a certain whimsy of style, and I drew directly onto the watercolor paper with the brightest oil pastels in my box without a single line of preparatory sketch, finishing up early the next morning with acrylic paint. Working in such a slipshod fashion, my hopes were that the comical absurdity of it all would be captured in the immediacy of my approach, garish choice of color, and ridiculous characters. It certainly drew some chuckles from the inside circle, so I hope it tickles you, too- I had a good time with it. Sex and danger with a dash of comedy!

Daughter

“Daughter” is really the last painting I worked on in 2007. It’s one of my magazine collage/acrylic combos, an approach to painting that I began experimenting with around 2005.  I found the pictures of both the girl on drums and the old man painting in front of his garage among separate ads in whatever magazines were lying around, and they wound up pasted to a piece of paper together with acrylic medium in my studio. Months later I accidentally discovered this unfinished collage among my clutter, and resumed work on my forgotten child. I am both a musician and a painter, so it’s little wonder I  chose them as potential characters and they ended up together: the father admiring the progress of his careful attention and encouragement. The great surrealist Marcel Duchamp once said that if an artist marries or has children, he is unwisely dividing his focus and attention on achievement, that one cannot create great art of with one foot in familial commitment, and the other submerged in the filthy business of uncompromising vision. I don’t know if Duchamp had children, but he was a merciless champion of modernity, and a professional smartass, which I admire in a man.

Eiffel Tower in the Snow

I painted this little Eiffel Tower in the snow for my Mum. Every year in the weeks just before Christmas, I agonize over what to do for her- I mean, what gift do you give the woman who gave you life!?

My mother is an outstanding individual, and is probably the primary factor in my becoming an artist- we visited the St. Louis Art Museum many times in my youth. Mom didn’t just push us through- she had favorite pieces (Degas’ Little Dancer was at the top of her list), and we would talk about what we both liked. She was raised a farmer’s daughter in the bootheel of Missouri, picking cotton with her sisters, and grew up to be a superbly learned educator in Foreign Language, acquiring her Masters Degree in the middle of her life- a time when most have forgotten their dreams of achievement. She has traveled the world, even taking her high school French students to Europe- how many high school teachers have been able to pull that off? I would bet the number is low, nationwide. If I’d had a brain in my head, I’d have learned French while under her roof all those years ago, sitting at the dinner table with the best French teacher in Missouri. But music and art ran through my veins at an early age, and creativity took me down a different path…

The day I began painting this little Eiffel Tower, it snowed all day, and so I crafted it snowing there in Paris. A tiny snowglobe in my imagination of a place I’ve never been, of a place my mother probably dreamt of as a little girl- a dream that came true.

Nelly

Nelly
acrylic, colored pencil on paper
2007 CM Shaw