Shirley Schanen Gruen
Quick Sketch
By Steve Horvath
Several years ago when I was the newsletter editor I started a series of mini biographies of members as a way of introducing ourselves to each other. I found the interview process to be very fascinating and enlightening on how individuals pursue their craft. This article, which was written for and appeared in our Spring 2010 newsletter, is an attempt to revive that series.
SHIRLEY SCHANEN GRUEN
- Shirley in her studio
Port Washington, September 5, 2009 – Shirley Gruen has always been an artist it seems. She started her knowledge quest at UW Madison in Applied Arts but through the encouragement of her mother took the necessary education credits so that she might be able to pursue a career in teaching. Shirley really liked the practice teaching, she said.
She went to California after college to go to art school for another year or two attending the Art Center School in Los Angeles, (now in Pasadena). One of the most interesting classes she took at the college was a light and shadow course. Students were asked to create a free form sculptural piece out of clay then light the work from one side and interpret the piece through drawing exploration.
Besides wanting to take more art classes Shirley thought this would be a good location to welcome Gerald, her husband to be, back home from WWII. Shirley and Gerald returned to Port Washington, Wisconsin to be married in 1947.
While She and Gerald were raising their son and two daughters Shirley was also focused on her painting. She likes to work in many mediums like oil pastel and charcoal and also likes pottery but has not done much in that area. She settled on watercolor and more specifically its water-based cousin acrylic because of its color saturation.
Shirley continued to take classes working with John Triba and Mel Kishner at Cardinal Stritch in the 60’s. She also shared her artistic knowledge at MATC’s Nicolet campus teaching portrait painting. She said that Mary Knoll was one of her students.
In the 70’s Shirley moved into her own studio in Glendale. In 1980 she moved to Port Washington to rent a space from Dan Smith (Smith Bros.). She kept this studio for 3 years then moved again and rented for a handful of years, in the space she is in now in, before she finally purchased the building.
She has ensconced her studio on the second floor of her building, (see picture below), in the front with a view of N. Franklin Street below. She has all of the accouterments a good artist needs: drawing board, files for reference material, shelves for art materials, and a desk for paperwork. She also has a couple of additional rooms on the floor to use for students that she works with from time to time.
- Shirley‘s studio at 303 N. Franklin Street in the town of Port Washington
A few weeks before this interview I visited with Shirley in her studio and she showed me the rather detailed pencil layout she was doing for a painting idea she was starting from an interior figurative scene she saw and responded to when she was in New York a few weeks before. After doing pencil studies from various pieces of photo reference to determine what the content of the painting will be, she grids the paper for enlargement to a large piece of illustration board.
She has done a lot of experimenting on how to lay color down but has shown a lot of success by using an old credit card to ‘move’ the pigment around her illustration board to cover larger areas of her work. Brushes, of course, are used for some of the finer details visible in her work.
Shirley is very much a businesswomen as well as an accomplished artist. She believes in marketing herself as well as her work. Towards that end she has a very busy gallery / retail shop on the first floor below her studio that displays her original work. She also has a selection of prints of various sizes of her work as well as boxed note cards that show images of her work.
Shirley will be showing one of her new pieces, ‘Window to Paradise’ at the American Artists Professional League in New York. The opening in New York is on October 31st at the Salmagundi Club.
What: Shirley Schanen Gruen Studio
When: Weekdays 10 – 4:30, Saturdays 10 – 2:30
Where: 303 N. Franklin Street, Port Washington, WI 53074
Telephone: (262) 284-2273