Meet Christina Shook | Artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Christina Shook and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Christina, what’s something about your industry that outsiders are probably unaware of?
Art doesn’t fit in a box and it doesn’t have to be pretty. It’s a fluid expansive and permeating condition. To be an artist is to think and feel and to be aware and attentive. While I believe people think artists are talented, and possibly visionary; It seems to me people outside the arts consider artists flakey and possibly unreliable.

And as someone who has long straddled a creative business along with parenting and art – I’d say I work best when I don’t have to perform the demands of a box. When I can start my day by dawdling with paint brush in my studio or just walking around town… this is me charging up for work.

It takes a tremendous amount of belief, focus and energy to create. And that is best done when one is free to be all that, soulful, meandering and able to clear the day and night to get down to business. I can and I do manage my book keeping, social obligations and the business of daily life because any intelligent working person must. But I also spend my time at a stop light doing things like visually connecting the morphing light bouncing off a car to what’s sitting on my easel.

So I’d say, that what looks like spaciness to others is often what constitutes the work of an artist connecting the mind and body to the world. Art is the most valuable thing in the world I believe, and funny enough the hardest thing to charge money for.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
My work is a conversation between photographs and painting. As a lifelong professional photographer, spanning most types of photographic work, I now use paint to take my work to a new thrilling place where I play with the ideas of fact vs fiction.

I start by taking a photograph and printing on large cotton fiber paper. With very little post editing adjustment, the photo stands as a fact of something that existed in that exact time and place. Then I begin painting over it, rather abstractly responding to the image, my memory of taking it, and its emotional content. I paint things out and sometimes I paint them back in again. I make things up and I fill in. I like to see how much I can paint over before the image falls apart or losses recognizable objects.

As David Hockney says quite simply, “Photography is fast. Paint is slow.” I’d love to sit and have a long debate with him because there is so much he says that I love and so much I want to argue with.

I studied at San Francisco Art Institute back in 1997/98 where the doors of my mind were thrown open – then I went on to work at Smash Box Studio in Los Angeles where I go to assist the most amazing photographers working in entertainment of the era. I continued my career doing portraits for everything from magazines, advertising and families. It was a wonderful way to make a living while raising a family.

Then the pandemic came and while my career was shut down, I was craving a physical connection to creativity. Digital photography, and in fact all photography had lost my passion. So I took a painting class outdoors, 6 ft apart wearing a mask, from artist friend Aimee Bonham. I thought “gosh painting is hard” as I painstakingly painted a realistic fruit arraingement.

Then I went home and took the lovely photographic print I’d been painting from and I wondered how I could show deeper interest in the complexity of a side lit piece of fruit and all it’s wonderful texture and gradations so precise in a photograph. I loaded my brush with paint and pulled a thick orange line across the orange. That was a eureka moment for me, the standard still life photo vibrated with that orange band and it illuminated the image.

I was off and running and painting on all my photographs. I’m still enamored with paint itself, the physical juicy flowing physical quality of it. The texture, the flow, the weight of it and opacity. I love the spontaneity of paint and the ability to add layer upon layer. It’s all very very different than the mechanical digital process and smooth surface of photography. It is exactly what I craved.

Photography is still my starting point, it is the way I explore and frame the world around me. It’s the way I sort and organize visual information. So it’s a natural medium for me to grow with and out of. I now have a large printer that takes up a big part of my small studio.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
I live in Laguna Beach which is an incredibly charming small town with stunning natural beauty all perched on cliffs and hills above the sea. The ocean is the beating heart of Laguna so I would surely start there.

Day One: A walk along Heisler Park is great place to start as it’s lined with sculptures, palm trees and flowering landscape above sandy beaches and coves. Plein Aire painters are often out painting and I love stopping to watch. We’d walk to lunch at Driftwood kitchen for outdoor seating and great California casual dining. Or maybe grab burgers at the classic hamburger stand Husky Boy.
Then we’d get out nails done at my favorite salon Lovely Nails on North Coast Highway where they spend a good hour pampering your legs and feet along with a lovely pedicure.That evening, we’d go the Marine Room or The Cliff to catch live music, maybe a game of pool. If we got crazy, we’d end up at the Sandpiper Bar better known as “the dirty bird”.

There’s so very much in Laguna, I’ll just tell you the art things I’d want to show off in my very special town Laguna Beach.
if it’s summertime our three art festivals run all summer – The Sawdust Festival being my hands down favorite and must-do.
Poetry and Art walking tour that’s 1.7 miles and has great ocean views http://friendsofthelagunabeachlibrary.org/images/Poetry_Trail_Guide-v7-final.pdf
Laguna Art Museum is a superb regional art gallery that has a lot of events and community art projects.
Laguna Beach Plein Air Painters Association (LAPAPA) has their own gallery 414 N. Coast Highway and you can often find them out painting around Heisler Park.
We have a small but mighty little Laguna Art Supply store right downtown that you can pick up whatever you need. Also they have quirky vintage objects and artworks for sale tucked into corners. It’ an adventure to go there!

Among my favorite galleries are:
The Cove – abstract art collective
Sue Greenwood – contemporary
Joanne Artman – contemporary
The Laguna Beach Cultural Arts Center always has films, documentaries, music, lectures… https://www.lbculturalartscenter.org
No Square Theater is my favorite for local productions at a very reasonable price: https://www.nosquare.org

And if it’s summertime our three art festivals run all summer – The Sawdust Festival being my hands down favorite and must-do.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I dedicate this Shout Out to artist and gallerist Renée Ortiz at the She/They Gallery in Santa Ana – my creative home in Southern California. They open their doors to supporting artists whose work is under recognized and not been given the voice it deserves and does so without a push to monetize it . Every artist they show has a true connection to the arts as a contemporary force and reason. Renee personally has the magical ability to foster and recognize unique creative drive as well as to spark and grow it in her work as a teacher.

Website: https://christinashook.myportfolio.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cshooky

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CShookUp

Image Credits
Christina Shook