About The Artist

Shelly Sayler is originally from Bismarck, North Dakota, where she now resides with her husband. From a very young age, Shelly exhibited signs of a passion for the arts. Her parents, Barton and Cheryl, harbored this passion by having her formally trained through classes at THEO, where she was one of the first students, which led her to pursue her art career. This passion and training continued into her adult life where she earned her Bachelors of Fine Arts through the University of South Dakota with a double emphasis in ceramics and painting. To earn money towards going to college, Shelly returned to THEO to teach drawing to young artists.

 

Shelly had a show at the Oscar Howe Gallery in South Dakota. After returning to her childhood home, Shelly found space to host a show under Nodakian Studios in Bismarck. After an extended hiatus from the art world, she wishes to continue that momentum going into the future. Shelly has since started to bring her knowledge to the teaching scene at United Tribes Technical College. She teaches her students how to throw pottery on a wheel as well as guides them on decorating technique. She has also taught hand building classes at another venue and plans to continue teaching that in her own space later on down the road.

 

Shelly is now a full-time artist and world traveler. Through her travels, she fell in love with the beautiful pottery of Italy and Sicily. She is currently working on a guided artist studio crawl through Sicily. She wishes to continue this endeavor through other countries of the world.

 

All of Shelly’s pieces are highly decorative, showcasing her signature marking and sgraffito technique, which she likes to adapt from her paintings and sketchbooks. Although she has both a low fire and high fire kiln, which she utilizes firing of her work, she endeavors to build her own wood fire kiln to give her pieces a unique lifelike glow.