New Artwork: Between Worlds

My first finished mixed media painting in Estonia depicts a white stork (Ciconia ciconia).

The substrate is antique lace over wood panel. My process involved attaching the lace to the panel, painting the portrait, removing the lace and altering the coloration of the wood panel surface, and then meticulously re-registering and attaching the lace back on top and sealing it down.

These birds are embedded in Estonian rural life: they're associated with summer farms and considered good luck omens. Storks are also important in folklore, as they accompany souls to the underworld and bring newborns into the world as a part of a cycle of death and rebirth in Finno-Ugric mythology.

This is Between Worlds, acrylic and antique lace on wood panel, 14x14x1.5”, 2026.

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Shelby Prindaville's mixed media lace painting of a white stork.

Upcoming: Loovlinnak Creative City Artist Residency in Pärnu, Estonia

I’m excited to share that I will be attending the Loovlinnak Creative City Artist Residency in Pärnu, Estonia this summer for a month-long stay in June 2026! This will be my first time in the Baltics, and I’m excited to experience and document the environment and atmosphere in and around the “summer capital of Estonia.”

As always, I’ll try to get some Estonian under my belt before I go. However, there are no local classes in Estonian nor is it even available on Duolingo, and it’s a language family with which I’m unfamiliar (Finnic, a division of Finno-Ugric). I imagine I’m not going to get very far with this one, but I’ll do what I can!