Meet Shayna Cohn

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Shayna Cohn a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Shayna , appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?

I get my resilience from my parents. They have taught me how to rebound from disappointment and reframe my expectations when things don’t go as expected. Humor has always been used as a coping mechanism in my family. Faced with the absurdity of trying times, laughter has proven to be the great reset. They also instilled in me a work ethic and a dedication to seeing things through. One particular instance that I could have cried (and I did on a few occasions), but then I reframed and chuckled at the absurdities was in my experience of creating Sparkle Cave, a permanent installation at Meow Wolf Denver. This 4-year process taught me a lot about resilience, and much about good humor. When I was accepted to create a custom and permanent installation for this exhibition, I had no idea how many twists and turns the project would take, and how many revisions and adjustments I would have to make along the way. This project began in 2018, and the space they had allocated for Sparkle Cave was an oversized stairway with approximately 1600 square feet of wall space. I had envisioned an immersive installation of a cave, that was sparkly, ornate, and layered with hundreds of sculptures and thousands of little details including a two-story lighting element, kinetic project lighting onto woven dichroic ceilings, and a custom soundtrack. My vision for this project never changed, but my implementation changed hundreds of times throughout the 4-year process. One huge hurdle was the Denver Fire Code. There were a lot of rules about what materials I could use, where I could place items in proximity to fire sprinklers and walkways for example, and a lot of rules I never considered when making artwork. I had to revamp my entire material list and concept when I was educated about Class A Materials, rules regarding weight, and heights at which I could hang my sculptures from the ceiling. In the moment, it was frustrating and I had to go back to square one in terms of my materials, however, I’m grateful for the challenge it posed and the reframing opportunity I was given to explore a new material — ceramics. I used ceramics as the primary decorative element in the Sparkle Cave walls because of its Class A specification (it would never light on fire). To prepare for this material shift, I took a ceramics class and developed a repertoire of sculptural shapes that I embedded into the plaster panels covering the walls. This created a highly customizable, materially rich, and more dynamic presentation than my previous iteration. Furthermore, I have fallen in love with the material, and my current studio practice centers around using ceramics to create stand-alone and wall-based sculptures. I attribute the constraint in my Sparkle Cave project as the catalyst for my exploration into ceramics, and I attribute my resilience for the way I cherish the lessons learned and rose to the challenge.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

My studio practice is largely material-based and focuses on exaggerating phenomena found in the natural world, often playing with ornate, tactile, and shimmering materials that are highly responsive to both environment and interaction. My work seeks to transport the viewer to spaces that delight and surprise. I create objects and installations that evoke a playful sense of wonder, laced with humor and material wit.

I’m currently working on a series of ceramic sculptures, both stand-alone and wall-mounted. These pieces are evocative of rock formations or underwater coral landscapes with a psychedelic pastel rainbow palette, embellished with rhinestones, glass, and mirror elements, and sometimes functioning as candelabras. The textures are evocative of the natural world but are heightened and exaggerated, reminiscent of highly decorative and ornate interior furnishings.

I’m also exploring and integrating blown glass sculptures into these pieces adding another shimmering and dynamic element to these works.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

I have been so lucky to pursue a truly comprehensive art education (MFA) and currently be involved in art education professionally (Assistant Professor). That sense of community has been formative as I have developed into a professional artist. Having resources, such as space to work, and peers and mentors to provide feedback has been extremely impactful. I find that one project informs the next and that momentum helps to motivate and guide my next steps creatively, conceptually, and professionally. Having a supportive network that is encouraging but also challenging has been highly impactful for my success.

My family is the bedrock of my success. I have been so lucky to have supportive parents who nurtured my interest in art and continue to provide material and emotional support throughout all my endeavors. A supportive partner is also vital, and currently, my studio is home-based allowing me to be more productive with my time and our resources.

Because my work is project-based and my material interests are always changing and evolving, I would say that learning how to investigate and fostering curiosity is probably one of the qualities that has helped me the most. Being an artist requires “out of the box” thinking, insatiability, and a level of abstract thinking that encourages you to experiment, fostering interesting ideas, and innovative visual outputs. It’s a real challenge to try to make something that has never been made before, and this can be a daunting task with awareness of the hundreds of years of art making that has proceeded. I set high standards for my work, rabidly avoiding complacency, and working hard to surprise and delight myself. There is nothing more satisfying than being surprised by your work. That feeling inspires me, especially in those challenging moments.

Who is your ideal client or what sort of characteristics would make someone an ideal client for you?

I would love to be involved in another public art project. While this experience was all-consuming, it was so satisfying and I feel so lucky to be able to share my vision with such a large audience. I would like to collaborate with an individual or company to create a site-specific artwork using ceramics and other sculptural interventions that respond to specific architectural or lighting conditions. My current interests are leading me towards creating discrete sculptures using ceramics and glass, and I would like to be challenged to create a wall-hanging or ceiling-mounted sculpture that utilizes these materials and perhaps lighting as well. A particular challenge I would enjoy working on would be creating something that transitions between day and night time, activating natural light as well as having a light source that is activated at night to create a different experience. Ideally, this project would have a healthy budget and fabrication support. I would love to be able to create this piece for an audience in health care or mental health.

Contact Info:

Image Credits

Kate Russell

Wes Maygar

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