WELCOME

Welcome to my artist’s website where I delve into my life as a creator. I LOVE creating animals with big personalities; imbuing them with human like characteristics and personas in my sculptures.

I also thoroughly enjoy graphic design and creating print products like unique cards, stickers, and awareness information cards (i.e. myasthenia gravis awareness info cards which can be found on the Etsy site for In Sickness and Nevermind)

In addition to sculpting and graphic design, I am an advocate for using a creative outlet as part of a self-care regimen. I share these beliefs as well as provide tips on my Facebook page and throughout my blog. I am also a writer for Myasthenia Gravis News; my weekly column is called “The Whispered Roar”.

Within this site, you’ll find all kinds of awesome things. Galleries of my completed sculptures, my artist biography and statement, various tutorials, blog posts about my journey as a differently-abled artist, articles about arts accessibility, and more!

Interested in reading about my life as a disabled artist?

Want to learn ways to overcome different hurdles in the studio?

Or maybe you’re looking for different clay tutorials? Or maybe non-clay tutorials (I do dabble in resin casting my originals after all). These are now considered legacy/archived writings. I’ve had to move away from ceramic clay due to my disabilities; I will be elaborating more in future blog posts!

All that and more can be found in my BLOG. So if you have a minute or five, I’d encourage you to check it out. If you keep scrolling there is a random list of recent posts below.

MEDIA – to check out the interviews, podcasts, articles, and guest blog posts I’ve been featured in/on, check out my media appearances page!

TMF

Young adult female using forearm crutches standing in front of a sign for the Travis Mills Foundation in Rome, Maine

Starting in 2017, my love of helping others and clay elevated to the next level when I began teaching art classes at the Travis Mills Foundation.  In 2018, I was invited back and continue to teach these classes during each retreat. I continued to teach classes, including virtual classes during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020-2021.

In May 2022, I also became an ambassador for this amazing organization!

MALI

Large group of people looking up and smiling at the camera

In 2018 I was afforded another opportunity to expand my (out)reach even more. I was invited to apply and was selected to be a teaching artist leader for the Maine Arts Leadership Initiative . 

I’m am doing a HUGE overhaul of this website. Please excuse my dust and let me know if there are any broken links or weird looking pages. You can email me the issues at info@shawnabarnes.com and use the subject “Website Oopsies” so I know you’re not a spam bot.