I photographed Shawna at The Betty, a gallery at Front Street in Dayton, where she’s had an exhibition for the last two months.  .

“I put a group of my larger works in this exhibition” she told me. “They’re from several time periods.”

I asked about another painting, called “The Poet.”

“This one was done quite a while ago. The pose is from one of my favorite paintings, “The Old Guitarist” by Picasso. The poem in the painting is something I came across that seems like it was written for all artists, not just poets – especially these lines:

            The poet must look at the world,

            Must enter into other men’s lives,

            Must look at the earth and the sky,

            Must examine the dust in the street”

I also visited Shawna’s Gallery – https://www.chasinglightartstudio.com/ – at 1410 South Main Street, Studio C, Springboro, Ohio 45066.  The studio is on the second floor, so you climb a flight of stairs to get to it.

At the top of the stairs you enter one of two small rooms where you can buy works by more than 15 area artists. Then you enter the large room where Shawna paints and where she gives classes.

“When I first moved to Springboro I took yoga classes here” Shawna told me. “As the morning sun streamed through these windows I always thought it would be a great place to paint. Now I can.”

I asked Shawna how she’d ended up in Dayton. “We travelled quite a bit as I was growing up. Then we moved here and I graduated from Centerville High School. Since then I’ve travelled a bit. I got an art degree at St Mary’s in Indiana and studied for a year in Rome. Then I was a graphic designer in Chicago, California, Denver, then back to California where I started teaching. I moved back here eight years ago and I love it.

The first job I got when I moved here was teaching at the Dayton Art Institute. I taught portraiture, the same class I’d taken there as a high school student. It felt like my life had come full circle.”

“Opening this business four years ago has been like a dream come true. Now I can make art and teach in my own space. I first taught art to kids when I lived in California and I was surprised how much I loved it. I’m not sure I could tell you which of those activities – making art and teaching art – I like the best. I usually teach adults one-on-one, and I have regular group classes for kids.”