Shelby Prindaville
I have a solo show coming up at the Le Mars Arts Center! Biophilia will run January 2 - February 26, 2026. The Le Mars Art Center is located at 200 Central Avenue South, Le Mars, IA 51031.
Their business hours are:
Tuesday 01:00 pm - 05:00 pm
Wednesday 01:00 pm - 05:00 pm
Thursday 01:00 pm - 07:00 pm
Friday 01:00 pm - 05:00 pm
Saturday 10:00 am - 04:00 pm
Closed Sundays & Mondays
I’ll let you know once we have selected a reception date and time!
While I was in Japan this summer, I visited a number of important ceramic-production locations (Shigaraki, Imari, Arita, and Karatsu). I’d wanted to make ceramics during my first Arts Itoya residency, but the firing timings did not align with a one-month stay; for my second I was there for even less time due to my Kyoto solo show so I knew it couldn’t happen.
However, on this second trip I bought a small quantity of Shigaraki clay (Shigaraki is one of the six ancient kilns of Japan) and gathered volcanic ash (with the permission of my tour guide) outside of a shrine on Mount Aso. I brought these materials back with me, and made a couple of pieces!
My hope had been that the Shigaraki clay I purchased had the feldspar inclusions that lead to a sort of blistered, weeping surface; those descriptors don’t sound particularly aesthetically compelling but I really like the unique finish. However this didn’t happen with the clay I bought. It could potentially be due to how I fired it (Cone 6 electric), but from its pre-fired texture, I don’t think it had those inclusions in it to begin with. Though that was a disappointment, I am still happy with the resulting pieces.
I made a medium-sized bowl and a very small bowl, and the images below depict them individually as well as together for a better sense of scale. They are site-specific to Japan and materially meaningful!
I experimented one last time at the April 2025 workshop: I wanted to approximate pit firing, so I put a burnished bowl into an aluminum foil saggar along with a variety of combustibles including dried banana peel, coffee grounds, steel wool, and some metal salts.
Here is that bowl post-firing:
The metal salts didn’t really do much, but the rest of the colorants did produce a range of neutrals! I really liked this result and plan to do more in this vein in the future.
Before we get to my pieces from the October 2025 workshop, I never finished sharing my April 2025 raku pottery as I segued into Japanese residency posts and then went on from there! When we last left off, I had shared my experiments with Mason stains and crackle glazes.
I also experimented with dark teal Mason stain and ferric chloride saggar-fired pottery!
First, we have an orb marked with copper mesh:
This is a small dish which has some marks from a copper wire on the exterior:
Next, an oblong vase! The black smoky spots are from testing out a bit of copper tape:
Finally, a small bowl, using a strip of copper mesh this time!
A number of people have shared with me that they really enjoy when I post progress images of my artwork, so they can see the process! Here are the behind-the-scenes pictures from this past summer.
As always, I remembered to document more with some paintings than others; I appear to have been so focused on the making of it that I never paused to photograph the process of creating Red Spider Lily - sorry!
Please also keep in mind that I take progress photos somewhat haphazardly compared to the care I put into the finished artwork images in terms of lighting, perspective, backgrounds, and color accuracy.
First we have Even the Shadows Are Fresh:
Next, we have Blue Hour:
Here is After the Rain:
And finally, Edge of Motion:
Here are some show photos from my Flora, Fauna, Form: Japan solo show up in Eppley Art Gallery at Morningside University through October 17th! My original paintings, ceramics, and Japanese workshop results (including an indigo-dyed blazer, handmade chopsticks, and a kintsugi-repaired dish) are on display alongside professional development research and promotion.
You can click onto any of the thumbnails below to see larger images!
I had a painting, Incursion, juried into the competitive regional group show Local Perspectives at the Sioux City Art Center.
44 artists’ work was selected by curator Christopher Atkins from over 250 submissions by 100 artists.
Local Perspectives is up from October 2, 2025 - February 8, 2026. The opening reception is on Thursday, October 2nd from 5-7pm. The Sioux City Art Center is located at 225 Nebraska Street, Sioux City, Iowa 51101.
I’m excited to see everything that got in at the opening reception!
My exhibition and associated events with several elementary schools in Yamanashi City led to some press!
Japanese national Yomiuri SDGs Newspaper (special educational issue of The Yomiuri Shimbun) featured my Tekisen Elementary School collaboration (part of my Nezu Memorial Museum invitational solo show and visit) in an article in July 2025.
Kōhō Yamanashi (Yamanashi City Public Relations Brochure), a quarterly magazine, published “Shelby Prindaville Art Exhibition at Nezu Memorial Museum” in Issue: July 2025, Vol. 245 as part of Yamanashi City’s 20th Anniversary Commemorative Events.
Yamanashi City Cable TV broadcast segment on my Tekisen Elementary School visit and student exchange, May 2025.
I’ve had quite a few solo shows this year, and this is the last for 2025: Flora, Fauna, Form: Japan opens in Morningside University’s Eppley Art Gallery on September 17 and runs through October 17. It encompasses the past two years of my studio practice, which have been focused on Japanese ecology and art.
This exhibition is free and open to the public, and will feature my own original artwork along with professional development promotion. The reception will be on Wednesday, October 1st from 3-4pm, and I hope to see you there!
After I painted After the Rain, I still had one sheet of the Nao Washi paper I had purchased left, and I was still very interested in working with the sumi as well - so I decided to make another in the same vein! This time, the subject is a grey heron (Ardea cinerea) I spotted hunting in a river. I fortunately finished this painting just ahead of when I needed to pack up at the end of the residency!
This is Edge of Motion, sumi and acrylic on washi paper, 5.3 x 15", 2025.
Once again interrupting my Japanese posts to remind you that the invitational You Want a Piece of Me? exhibition which I previously posted about here ends on August 17, 2025, so due to the gallery’s open hours you have two more dates left in which to stop by! I’ll get more into that below, but first, let’s do a deep dive into what I did.
This show asked artists to create art using a jigsaw puzzle, or puzzle pieces, as part of the art - and to leave at least some portion of original puzzle visible. You may recall that last year we did a similar challenge using board games, and here is what I did for that Advance to Gogh show in 2024!
For You Want a Piece of Me?, I needed to recycle puzzles - but I don’t own any, so I stopped by a thrift store and perused their offerings. I ended up buying three puzzles, mostly based on the differing scale of the pieces. I hadn’t decided what to do yet, but I figured owning these puzzles was a good first step. They were, in order of scale: L.O.L.Surprise! Floor Puzzle [large pieces], Milton Bradley lambs puzzle [medium pieces, 1 original piece held in an octopus tentacle], Milton Bradley Big Ben waterfall puzzle [small pieces, 1 original piece held in an octopus tentacle].
I pondered what I wanted to do with them for some time, as I wanted to make something that was still my own but that also satisfied the challenge parameters. I eventually decided I’d make a sort of topography out of the puzzles. This required actually building them, which for the 1000 piece puzzle took far longer than I wanted it to; I ended up building the other two easily but only assembling a few sections of the Milton Bradley Big Ben waterfall puzzle until I had enough connected material to satisfy my needs.
Then I built up a patchwork foundation, purposefully rejecting any edge pieces as I wanted the sculpture to communicate growth potential along its full border. After I glued it together and somewhat leveled its base, I then sculpted an octopus atop it. I formed the octopus out of QCC, clutching a mid-sized puzzle piece in one of its tentacles and a small piece in another. I also added some sand ridges. After curing, I painted the whole sculpture! Here are some progress pictures:
And here’s the finished piece! This is Construct, acrylic, QuickCure Clay, glue, and puzzle pieces, 16x25.67x3.25", 2025.
If you want to see Construct and the other Gallery 103 You Want a Piece of Me? entries in person, you can stop by either tomorrow (Saturday, August 9th) or next Saturday, August 16th between 10am and 1pm. Gallery 103 is located on the ground floor of the Ho-Chunk Centre located at 600 4th St, Sioux City, IA 51101.
In my travels in Japan, I’ve repeatedly come across calligraphy tools, artwork, and even participated in a 5th grade calligraphy lesson last year in Yamanashi City! In art classrooms in the US, the primary liquid ink we use is India ink (sometimes called China ink). Sumi is a bit different; the primary differentiator is that liquid sumi is typically soot bound with a synthetic glue that is not waterproof, so it can be lifted even after it dries. India ink is typically waterproof after drying. Sumi also has a more expressive and variable tone compared to the uniform performance of India ink.
In Japan, there is a type of artwork called sumi-e, which are ink wash paintings. They are often 100% sumi, though some add small accents with red ink and you can find some outliers that expand the color palette just a bit further. By adding acrylic paint, however, I have definitely strayed outside of making a traditional sumi-e. This would be better classified as mixed media, inspired by sumi-e. I painted atop a washi paper I purchased at Nao Washi in Saga.
The subject of this painting is a Japanese native freshwater crab (Geothelphusa dehaani) called sawagani (サワガニ). I have seen these crabs all around Japan, often in and around streams but also venturing further afield in evening rains. I encountered this one on the street while biking home from the studio one night right after the rain had stopped.
This is After the Rain, sumi and acrylic on washi paper, 5.3 x 15", 2025.
My June 2025 show card design for Ikigai, Continuing.
The Arts Itoya residency show and reception was scheduled earlier in June 2025 than it was in June 2024 and I arrived five days late due to my show at Kansai Gaidai, so I only had three works finished for my Arts Itoya show (as well as a work in progress!). I titled my show Ikigai, Continuing 「生き甲斐・再び」, to connect it to my June 2024 Arts Itoya show Ikigai 「生き甲斐」. To the right you can see the show card face which I designed!
The reception was a great time; it was four hours long and quite a few people stopped in to check it out. I had invited a very well-known artist from Takeo, Takeru Niizato, to stop by (and also asked if I could set up a visit to his atelier after our show came down); he was very kind and took the time to attend our reception and scheduled our visit for later that week.
Below are some photos from my show reception!
I’m also excited to share that I’ll have a solo show Terra Traces at Coyote Gallery in Vermillion, South Dakota, from July 17 - August 31, 2025. The reception will be on Saturday, July 19th from 3-5pm. I hope there’s good turnout!
The Vermillion Cultural Association operates the First Dakota Coyote Gallery (colloquially called Coyote Gallery) which is located at 12 E. Main Street, Vermillion, SD 57069. Below is the show poster designed by Vermillion Cultural Association Executive Director Shannon Cole!
I’m interrupting my Japanese posts (which will continue!) to share that the Summer 2025 ArtWalk is on Thursday, July 10, 2025, starting at 5:30pm at the Sioux City Art Center in Sioux City, IA. Visitors can walk from there to Gallery 103, 3Rivers Art Gallery, ArtSUX, and Vangarde Arts. At each venue, visitors will see artworks that follow the theme: You Want a Piece of Me? Over 30 local artists (including me!) have created art using a jigsaw puzzle, or puzzle pieces, as part of the art.
The Sioux City Journal published a cover article titled "Putting It Together" about the event and exhibition on Monday, June 30th with some flattering descriptions and a sneak peek detail of my submission which will be at Gallery 103. To respect the SCJ paywall, I'll just include an image of the part of the article that's about me! (You can click on it to expand the image if you’d like.)
Every location will offer a chance to see our art community's creativity, and snacks and beverages, too. If you want, you will also be able to use your phone and a posted QR code to vote for your favorite artwork! The First Place winner of the People's Choice Award will receive a fine-art wood-crafted jigsaw puzzle from Liberty Puzzles in Boulder Colorado. The Second Place winner will receive a $100 gift certificate to a class at the SCAC.
After the reception is over, I’ll share my piece in its entirety for those of you who can’t make it to the ArtWalk!
Painting tanuki (Nyctereutes viverrinus) unintentionally became a multi-year quest, which lived up to the yokai version’s reputation for illusions and light-hearted trickery.
I decided to paint them on the fan-shaped washi paper which I dyed with indigo (aizome) in my workshop in Tokyo in mid-May. Due to the coloration of the washi and the folkloric aspect of tanuki, I chose to paint them in a limited color palette which isn’t completely monochromatic but which has indigo as the key color.
Tanuki are nocturnal, so the English title Blue Hour felt appropriate as the blue hour is a term for the short period of twilight just before sunrise or just after sunset. The Japanese title is 藍影 (Aikage), which means Indigo Shadows.
This is Blue Hour (藍影), acrylic and traditional indigo dye on fan-shaped washi paper, 7.7x15.75”, 2025.
There’s a word in Japanese that doesn’t quite have a satisfying translation to English: 新緑 (shinryoku). It’s the new, lush green of early summer. One of the plants that always captures that feeling for me is the ginkgo tree (Ginkgo biloba). I wanted to capture 新緑 in a painting of ginkgo leaves.
In researching possible titles for this painting, I learned that the ginkgo tree holds particular significance in Japan as one of the “survivor trees” that survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. I watched a short documentary on the man who has dedicated himself to caring for these trees and the trees themselves here. I highly recommend watching it; it is a moving story.
I also was inspired by haiku about shinryoku and related concepts like wakaba and midorisasu, like this poem from the poet Teruko from the Rainier Haiku Ginsha: “は一色ならず色重ね (shinryoku wa hitoiro narazu irokasane) / fresh green is not one color but layered hues.”
This is Even the Shadows Are Fresh (新緑), acrylic on round wooden panel, 12x12x.875”, 2025.
As a little bonus, here are a few images I’ve gathered of ginkgo leave motifs around Japan!
I’ve wanted to paint a red spider lily (Lycoris radiata) for some time because of their Asian iconography. In Japanese, this flower is the 彼岸花 (higanbana), and it symbolizes death, farewells, and the afterlife across Asia. It is planted around graveyards due to its toxicity, which discourages animals from disturbing graves. In artwork and storytelling (including anime), higanbana often foreshadows an upcoming fatality. An interesting botanical aside about this plant is that the bulb blooms first; usually only after the flowers die does it send out leaves!
Higanbana blooms between late August through early October, around the autumnal equinox. Due to my teaching schedule, my visits have only been possible in the early summer, so I couldn’t see them bloom in person here in Japan. I also tried and failed to source a bloom in the USA; due to its floriography, florists don’t carry it and if I bought and planted a bulb, it typically takes 4-7 years to flower.
However, a friend and Morningside alumna is relocating soon to Tokyo, and she was visiting Japan last autumn. I asked her if she’d be able to do me the favor of taking a few photos of these flowers and ceding me the copyright. She was willing and accomplished the task, so when I arrived at Takeo-onsen, I began work on this painting right away!
This is Red Spider Lily, acrylic on lattice pattern brass leaf Torinoko paper, 11.6x17.5”, 2025. It’s impossible to simultaneously photograph the painting well and show the reflective sheen of the paper, so just know that this painting is far more regal in person due to the golden metallic luster of the substrate.
Mia and I set out for Kansai Gaidai quite early, and arrived around 10am. We immediately greeted the Center for International Education’s staff and headed over to the International Communication Center to install the show. We strategized about the movable wall placement and then began to place and hang all of the artwork. Here are some images of the results, as well as the advertisements and KGU show panel:
While at Kansai Gaidai, I stayed in guest housing. I led a toast at the Asian Studies Program Completion Ceremony for the graduating class of students, and also attended a staff dinner. My hosts were very kind and welcoming! I had some free time on my hands as well, so I went into Kyoto to see Iwatayama Monkey Park in Arashiyama, checked out the Kyoto Handicraft Center and the Kyoto Museum of Crafts and Design, visited Zohiko Lacquer Shop, and attended the non-verbal play Gear. I also did a pretty far-away day trip to the town of Shigaraki, which is famous as one of the six ancient kilns of Japan and also the birthplace of the infamous tanuki statues you can find everywhere in Japan.
Once the exhibition ended, KGU staff once again kindly helped me and together we repackaged it into the shipping crate! After I said farewell, I headed down to Takeo-onsen for my second artist residency at Arts Itoya!
Morningside University board member Mia Sudo came to pick me up at my hotel in Tokyo on the morning of May 19th, and we traveled together to Yamanashi City where we met with Mayor Takagi and a number of other officials. I gifted the city with an 14x11” print of Paper Snow (紙吹雪) in a 16x20” mat, and also gave Mayor Takagi and other attendees a variety of gifts including my handmade small dishes and chopstick rests.
The mayor and city gifted me with a 20th anniversary of incorporation celebratory chopstick rest, postcards, a tenegui which has a capybara cartoon on it amongst other illustrations, and a beautiful tapestry made out of a portion of a kimono decorated with flying plovers (an iconographically significant bird in Japan).
They also took me along with some other honored guests who spoke English well and could serve as additional company for me out to lunch, and then in the afternoon I got to visit a second-grade classroom’s art lesson and a fifth-grade’s English lesson.
The next day, Toizumi-san, our driver, and honored guest Mizuochi-san picked me up and took me on a wonderful tour observing Mt. Fuji and Oshino Hakkai, stopping for a wonderful soba lunch - it was my favorite soba I’ve eaten in Japan, and I’ve eaten it a fair amount! We even drove up to the fifth station, where hikers commence their climb of Mt. Fuji! However, the path is closed until July, as it is too cold at the top of the volcano until late summer.
We also stopped by Fuefukigawa Fruit Park, visited the Yamanashi Prefectural Museum of Art, and also popped into an ice cream shop and visited an art supply and framing store.
The sheer amount of time that a number of Yamanashi City staff including Toshimi Toizumi-san, Chiemi Yokoyama-san, volunteer Maki Mizuochi-san, and many others put into showing me their home and surrounding areas was incredible. I even visited an onsen with Toizumi-san one evening!
On Saturday, May 24th, the closing reception, artist talk, and ceremony was held at Nezu Memorial Museum. Many people showed up, and one lovely woman told me about how she read quite a bit of my blog and was inspired by my research into Japanese culture, arts, and ikigai. She said she even read a short book on ikigai, thanks to me!
I am so thankful and honored by the generous hospitality that Yamanashi City showed me, and we all chose to say “see you again” rather than “goodbye” when the show closed!
