Meet Michael Shaw | Artist, activist and podcast host

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

Hi Michael, what led you to pursuing a creative path professionally?
Like many artists, it was a case of an art career choosing ME as opposed to the other way around. I didn’t land on art until my freshman year of university, when I took a few classes and kind of got hooked in, and by sophomore year I was an art major. Sticking with it well into adulthood has been a mix of curiosity, dedication, and masochism.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?

My brand is housing…but I’m not a real estate broker. I document single-family homes and apartment buildings through the arcs of their construction, focusing on the Westside of Los Angeles, where development is racing along at warp speed. How is this development affecting our neighborhoods and our city as a whole? We are in a housing crisis, and the homes I depict – using a bespoke process involving either varying layers of painter’s tape assembled into a temporary mask, or through handmade ‘photo’ negatives – are Rorschach tests for how people perceive our landscape is changing. I make these images, either on canvas or on paper, using cyanotypes, a pre-photographic process that creates a white and cyan-to-indigo spectrum; you’ve probably seen a cyanotype somewhere before, but nothing like these. My hybrid approach to making images merges drawing and a little painting with photography. I arrived at the processes through a mix of synchronicity, experimentation and persistence. The initial impetus was relatively simple: I was making paintings on large sheets of paper, using an airbrush and cut-out stencils to make the silhouettes of various objects, and my studio mate at the time asked me: ‘have you ever thought about cyanotypes?,’ which he been exposed to (no pun intended) in grad school. Long story short, I’ve been working with the process for nearly 10 years now, though I recently ducked away to make a painting, which I will implement more when the occasion, or spirit, calls.
I’ve been an artist for decades, but I’m still learning lessons regularly. They’re not big ones, more like micro lessons I learn along the way. One of those lessons is to advocate for yourself as an artist, which means making opportunities happen instead of hoping they’ll happen—that’s something I’m still learning all the time. When you make work about housing, who is going to support (and in some instances, ideally, buy) your work? The developers? The homeowners? Ideally, collectors representing a wide demographic.
I think the best teaser for the story of my professional arc, with all its challenges, lessons and successes comes in the form of a narrative podcast series that I’ve been working on (and off) for the last year: through the contributions of several volunteers and a few writers, we’ve been working on writing a multi-part series that ties together the life and career of a complex and mercurial artist from an earlier era with my own life- in art and in general. I have been doing The Conversation Art Podcast for a little over a decade now, a show which features one-on-one conversations with artists and other participants in the art world (writers, gallerists, etc.), but this new series is an endeavor that is pushing me creatively and logistically to tell a complex story of two individuals (myself and the artist) as well as the art world and, ideally, themes of human nature along the way. I don’t have a release date yet, but let’s hope that it will be ready for the fall.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?

It’s interesting how friends-in-from-out-of-town itineraries have changed with the pandemic- now it’s like they’re mini-vacations. As long as it’s not too hot/the peak of summer, I’d take them to the Huntington Gardens…then on another day the Self-Realization Fellowship gardens in the Palisades…

I wouldn’t tolerate a trip to the Hard Rock Cafe in Hollywood, but I might indulge a late lunch at the Ivy on Robertson, for a chance at some serious star-f***ing, as long as they’re buying…

Then there’s the obligatory drive up the PCH, where we might stop at Matador beach, or (again, if they’re buying) lounge the afternoon away with tropical drinks at the Paradise Cove Beach Cafe…

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?

When you make work about housing, who is going to support (and in some instances, ideally, buy) your work? The developers? The homeowners? The workers who build the houses? Potentially, all of the above. When I showed a series of cyanotypes on canvas depicting several ‘affordable housing’ buildings, I was able to get the exec. director of the organization (which manages that slate of buildings) to come meet me at the show, and she appreciated them enough to buy one of them, which now hangs in their office. This individual is Tara Barauskas, of Community Corporation of Santa Monica- many thanks, Tara.

Website: https://www.michaelshawstudio.com

Instagram: @michaelshawstudio

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-shaw-0b30a3a/

Twitter: @artistpodcast

Facebook: https://touch.facebook.com/michael.shaw.3994

Other: theconversationpod.com howigetbypodcast.com

Image Credits
©Michael Shaw