Connecticut Art and Garden Tour

FentonRiver Studio is my studio and gallery located within a colorful cottage garden.Entering the grounds past the planted Garden Lady you might want to wander through the willow archway. To your left is my Koi Pond and illuminated ‘Hobbit Abode,’ where a small artist just left – her painting still on the easel. Turn right to a seven-foot lion and a planted peacock standing guard near a fairie landscape in a boat, highlighting the whimsy visitors have delighted in while exploring this artistic space.Walking through walls of colorful cast cement leaves, decorated fairie houses and succulents galore in unique lava containers, you will find a moss chair blooming with primrose. Take the path sparklingwith mother-of-pearl, and enter my home and studio, featuring more than 150 oil, pastel and watercolor paintings. And there’s more…My life is dedicated to the expression of beauty in a space created for the enjoyment of others.Welcome!

Artist's Statement

My life is defined by creating, especially in my art studio and in my garden. Living here in this spacious old button factory has made it possible to apply every creative impulse. Here I have loads of light and a large open space for a big garden and room to create and also display my cast cement leaves and planted garden sculptures.

My garden is my playground, a space to fill with peonies, iris, and all manor of perennials that are in their full glory during the Art and Garden Tour. Even more, I have space to create cement sculptures in my “fort,” enclosed by a variety of willows. Within that space I can mold and cast colorful cement leaves and even flowers, beautiful in their natural form; enhanced by bright color, and better still, weather-proof in all seasons.

After eight years of creating the Lobby Entry Display for the CT Flower and Garden Show in the Convention Center in Hartford, my studio has profited from those same sculptures brought home and planted to be permanent fixtures in my garden. In addition to planted “garden ladies,” a large and small planted peacock, giant illuminated mushrooms and a lighted “hobbit abode,” there are sheep, chickens, a giant tortoise, and a seven-foot lion standing alert beside a boat filled with a fountain and a fairie house display. You will find many, many succulents in hyper-tufa containers, planted globes, and spheres on small columns that can define an entry or hide an unsightly post in your yard.

Inside the studio, my paintings are known to be saturated with light and color, informed by many years of painting from life. Whether landscape, animals or the figure, my paintings reflect many years of painting, teaching, and exhibiting my artwork, and not a small number of major awards.A full time professional painter for more than 45 years, I am now an elected artist and board member of Hudson Valley Art League, as well as a signature or artist member of CT Pastel Society, Academic Art Association, New England W/C Society, Lyme Art Association, Arts Center East, and CT Plein Air Painters Society. In 1988 I founded Artists Open Studio, the first Open Studio in Connecticut, which now after 35 years promotes the work of more than 65 artists in the Northeast Corner of Connecticut. Early in my career I was selected to be Resident Artist at Yellowstone National Park, and more recently I was chosen to be a Resident Artist at The New Britain Museum of American Art.

I take pride in my ability to convey to others in a class or a demonstration, how to see and understand the visual world in a way that makes their artistic journey enjoyable and productive. I am fortunate to be able to teach at the West Hartford Art League, Glastonbury Art Guild, and in own studio. I enjoy giving demonstrations in all of the mediums I work in, giving participants a running description of my thoughts, decisions, and process as the painting progresses.

“Because of how I see the beauty of nature, my paintings are exuberant with color and energy. I paint each day feeling the tradition of America’s plein-air masters close behind me, immersed in the light and atmosphere of the day. There is simply no way to describe the intense experience and connection that occurs when painting from nature.”

I welcome you to visit and enjoy my studio and garden during the Art and Garden Tour, or any time in the future. Take your time, as there is much to see.

Welcome! www.shaunashane.com 860-429-3646