For Shelly Koss Courtwright, the urge to create has always been in her blood. Ever since she was a child, she loved anything art. Her dad was very artistic, and her oldest sister went to art school.
“From when I was little, I was doing all kinds of drawings, watercolor paintings, and my dad taught me wood burning, I think, in third grade,” Shelly says.
During her time in elementary and high school, she entered her art in local competitions, like the Jacktown Fair. While she wasn’t really part of her local art club, she spent much of her time creating art on her own.
After graduating from West Greene High School, Shelly attended college at Seton Hill. She began her secondary education majoring in graphic design and switched to art education after a couple of years, before realizing that what she truly wanted to focus on was studio art, “working with her hands and creating things.” She also spent a summer in residency at Touchstone Center for Crafts in Farmington learning from other artists.
She graduated in 2006 and her initial plan was to find any sort of art-related job that would allow her to use her creativity. But the US was in a recession and the jobs were scarce. “There were some things in Pittsburgh, but I didn’t want to have to make that drive, so I decided I was just going to start my own business.”
She created a website, created some products, and started doing arts and crafts festivals. Creating the products was very experimental, as Shelly worked out what her customers were looking to buy. She took her products to local festivals and began building a clientele. Most of her clients came from word-of-mouth. With the arrival of Facebook, Shelly’s work got an even bigger boost. “Once I started putting my stuff on social media, where people could share and look at it, that’s how I got most of my orders.”
Early in Shelly’s business, she worked mainly in mural painting. After her three daughters (Ella, Kaitlyn, and Hailey) were born, it became hard to do the necessary travelling, and she focused on working from her home studio. You can find her murals in homes and local churches, and one of her favorites is the one she painted for her daughter at home.
“Wood burning has been the thing that people mostly order from me, mostly portraits,” Shelly says. And while she does most of her business in wood burning, painting is her passion. “I love to paint. I love the color and you can put it on anything. I like to paint walls, furniture, saws—nontraditional canvases.”
All her wood burning is done by hand. If you’re wondering how she can create such wonderful works of art by hand through wood burning, a lot of it is in the equipment. She uses a wood burner with an adjustable temperature setting that, when combined with her talent, helps her create amazing art.
Her current work has a rustic feel, even her portraits, and reflects her love of the outdoors. Her wood burning creations are on natural lumber with the bark still attached and her other work focuses on nature: animals and landscapes are a very common in her art. “I love painting trees!” She says, with a laugh. “I don’t know if it’s just how it looks on the wood, but it’s just fun to me, doing the bark and leaves.”
Now that her daughters have gotten older, Shelly’s looking to transition again. She’s looking to integrate epoxy into her wood burning work. “It’s something I’ve been wanting to do for a few years, but I haven’t gotten to it. I’m hoping to do a few examples and see if people get into it.”
“I really would like to get back into mural painting… getting back out into the community. I really do love it. I think that’s where my heart is at.”
Over the years, Shelly has taught classes, and her background in art education has helped. She’s held some paint parties for different churches in the area, as well as organizing children’s art activities with those churches. She also enjoys passing on the art tradition to her daughters in her home studio.
Shelly has some advice for aspiring artists: “Connect with other artists. I had a huge lack of that, personally. Connecting with other artists, be it in a co-op or other organization, that’s really the key. It’s so hard to do everything on your own. I think you can get burnt out on your own and you can spark your creativity with other artists.”
If you’d like to see more of Shelly’s work, find her on Facebook Koss Create and Paint. For inquiries about her work or commissions, please message her page.
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