We are welcoming Tawni Shuler for April and May 2026! Her exhibit, titled “How Shall We Live” reflects on living in our world and our bodies. Exhibit opens April 9 and will be up through May 30 with two receptions on April 10 and May 8. Tawni will join us May 8! She tells us:
“Once upon a time, when women were birds, there was the simple understanding that to sing atdawnand to sing at dusk was to heal the world through joy. The birds still remember what we have forgotten,that the world is meant to be celebrated.”
―Terry Tempest Williams,When Women Were Birds
This body of work is driven by the physical process of aging and the emotional response it generates. I create works on paper using collage techniques to address how time, lived experience, love and loss continue to form and shape our identity. These experiences can be all-encompassing, like coping with loss, the feeling of belonging, conquering fear, or small and specific, like the sheer joy of basking in the sunlight during the cold winter months. The characters living in these complex invented landscapes are simultaneously lyrical, magical, intimate, hopeful, mysterious and ominous.
My process of creating relies on intuition. I am simply responding to the beauty and chaos of a life lived and the world around me through drawing and observation. The works portray accurate representations of animals and landscapes; however, there are imagined and embellished counterparts. Part truth and part story to express archetypal strengths or weaknesses. Depictions of images such as antlers growing atop a rabbit’s head or sagebrush wings growing out of the back of a rabbit populate my work. Objects such as antlers, snakeskin and sagebrush function as symbols of power and perseverance. They become crowns, wings or capes, tools these animals use as they face universal obstacles in their specific lives.
I use fifteen-year-old drawings and prints that have moved with me multiple times as my life continues to evolve as a starting point or base layer. I cut out pieces that speak to me still and disregard the versions that no longer hold power. I work additively and subtractively to create depth on a two-dimensional surface. These older drawings represent a past version of myself and pose the questions: Who were you then? Who have you become? What parts of you are the same; what has changed?
After reading and re-reading one of my favorite books, When Women Were Birds by Terry Tempest Williams, I began thinking about how we grow into and sometimes out of our surroundings and our sense of self; unbecoming and becoming all at once. The text and
titles in this body of work have been the readings in this book. The resulting collages become a tangible history of past and present; a reflection of change and growth. Heavy thick fiber paper is employed to stand up to the layering of materials such as acrylic paint, charcoals, pastels and pen and ink. The two-dimensional surface of paper becomes the setting for imagery that is balanced between abstraction and representation, sharp or blurred, objective and subjective.
The resulting work depicts an emotional setting, allowing the viewer to witness and experience their own intimately personal landscape, as it relates to time, experience and relationships. Ultimately, the works ask viewers to look deeply at a life fully lived.
Biography:
Born on a farm in Wyoming, Tawni Shuler was enticed to paint and draw early on by the art of western painters Frederick Remington and Charlie Russell. She attended the University of Montana, Missoula to complete her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and Arizona State University to complete Master of Fine Arts degree in painting and drawing in 2008. She has since served as the Programming Director for the Red Lodge Clay Center in Montana, an Assistant Professor in Water media at Utah Valley University, an Instructor of Art at Sheridan College, Media Specialist for the Arizona Natural History Association, and Illustrator for Crystal Publishing. Currently, Shuler serves as the Program Director for the Ucross Foundation in Wyoming.
Her work has been shown at the Paris Gibson Museum, Great Falls, MT; University of Montana Gallery of Arts, Missoula, MT; Carbon County Arts Guild and Depot Gallery, Red Lodge, MT; Livingston Art Center, Livingston, MT; Edward A. Whitney Gallery, Sheridan, WY; Taos Center for the Arts, NM; Oates Park Art Center, Fallon, NV; Northwest Art Center, Minot, ND; Gertrude Herbert Institute of Art, Augusta, GA; g2 Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ; Harry Wood Gallery, Tempe, AZ; Zane Bennett Gallery, Santa Fe, NM; Missoula Art Museum, MT; Woodbury Art Museum, Orem, UT; Tucker Cooke Gallery, Asheville, NC; Smith Theatre Gallery, Farmington Hills, MI; Firehouse Gallery, Grants Pass, OR and was published in Southwest Art’s 2005 Annual Emerging Artist Issue. She has been an artist-in-residence at the Paseo Artist in Residency Program, Taos, NM; Jentel Artist Residency Program, the former Brush Creek Ranch Artist Foundation, and the Ucross Foundation in Wyoming.
Clay Paper Scissors Gallery & Studio 