Shelby & the ticking clocks

Beginnings

Shelby grew up near the Smoky Mountains of Eastern Tennessee. Her mother always played music for the family and her father had a talent for fine art. Despite their creative inclinations they both chose careers in the medical field. She knew from a young age that art would not be relegated to a hobby, it would be her center.

As a teenager Shelby interned for a local photographer and learned traditional techniques while experimenting with friends in her spare time. At 18 she decided to venture out and start her own business. She made money with graduation pictures and family portraits but continued to push her style further with friends. In college, her experience with photography deepened as her love for other mediums blossomed. She explored ceramics, metal work, painting, and mixed media. She spent more time shooting and more time creating than ever before.

“There's something about the complexity of these things that is interesting to me. The thing that drew me to photography that also drew me to ceramics was you don't know what the final result is going to be, especially with film. With digital it's different, but with film photography and ceramics there's a lot of chance in what comes out. There's a lot of experimentation. There's a lot of state of play in what you're making. That's why I’m especially drawn to those mediums.”

Photographing a fellow photographer can feel like taking a final exam. I second guess creative decisions and become fixated on my patterns. I want to perform perfectly. With Shelby, my anxiety melts away immediately. It feels less like an exam and more like recess. She throws out ideas, finds inspiration in her surroundings and allows her mind to be completely open. She takes direction happily and offers suggestions. There is no such thing as a bad idea. There is a lot of, “yes and…” There is opportunity everywhere if you look hard enough. Photography is an intimate collaboration between subject and creator. It’s a constantly evolving relationship and to be effective it requires the hardest thing of all. Trust.

“People don't realize that to be a successful portrait photographer you have to know how to talk to people, and you have to know how to have a presence that makes people feel relaxed around you. I had to learn how to do that. For me, it was learning how to elicit something I wanted without putting them into a pose. It was directing some type of action or some type of motion. For me, motion is really big. I like more cinematic stuff so I approach it in a cinematic way. That's where I find the state of play. A lot of times I will propose crazy things. I was doing a shoot with a girl and I was, like, ‘Get in the ocean.’ And she was, like, ‘I trust you.’ That is very much where I find the state of play in photography is doing weird stuff. You have to make yourself trustworthy for them to actually go along with your weird concepts.”

The first thing I notice about Shelby’s work is the posing. Posing is a skill that can set photographers apart. She catches her models in media res, finding emotional quiet moments that only seem visible to the camera. It’s like she is capturing their internal states through their body and posing. These big bold movements are a hallmark of her work.

Photography by Shelby Gordon

What is your most treasured memory?

“My first art show was a really treasured memory for me. It was a solo show. I got the opportunity [and] agreed to do it a week before. I had no work. I stayed up for three days straight. I didn't sleep. It was the first time I had ever experienced real sleep deprivation. I was doing these big mixed media pieces. I was taking blow torches to wood. I was creating these pieces outside in pitch dark. I was winging it.”

“In my college dumpster, I found all these really big pieces of wood that were scraps and I was like, ‘I could use these.’ Then I mounted all of these images on them. I threaded string designs on them and I remember getting to a point where I was so sleep deprived. I was eating Hershey Kisses just to keep myself going. I started sticking the foil wrappers into the pieces and it turned out so cool. It was the most treasured moment for me because I got that rush where people were very excited about my art. I was like, ‘You want to hear about my art?’ I'm on the top of the world. As an artist, I wish I could go back to that first time of talking to somebody about my art. They saw value and were interested in it. It was the first time I had ever felt something like that.”

In the midst of building her career, she moved to LA with her ex partner. As time passed, the relationship began to take an emotional toll on Shelby.

“I got to the point where I started standing up for myself and that wasn't met kindly. He took my cat, left me here. That being said, I have a new cat now who I'm obsessed with. His name is Gustav. He's a character, and no one can ever take him from me. When I ended my relationship of over a decade I felt like my world turned upside down. It was my whole adult life and then, all of a sudden, here I am by myself in California. I didn't know anything else in my adult life. I felt very alone. But also you have to figure this out, you're an adult. I was quiet and upset for a long time, and then I eventually started talking to people about what had been happening in my relationship that I wasn't talking to anyone about because it was embarrassing. It's hard to explain if you haven't been in a situation where there's emotional abuse and it's hard to explain to people because they're like why didn't you just leave?”

“Some people, their response was, ‘Well sorry that happened to you, we're going to continue being friends with this person though.’ It's rough to see people justify bad behavior or somebody mistreating you. It's so heartbreaking on top of everything else. There wasn't support in the way that I thought there was going to be. What was being told to our friends was that I was mentally ill or I had emotional health issues and it was me, it was my problem. Which was hard because just to be able to talk about stuff was hard for me.”

“I had these two mutual friends, Marc and Krystal , and they stepped in and were like, ‘Anything you need, we are here for you. We believe everything you're saying.’ They came to my defense. They even ended up letting me live with them for a year after. They showed me love and support in a way most didn’t.”

“All of this to say It makes me really grateful for my friends and now partner, Garrett, who has shown me what healthy love and respect looks like. He brought my light back. “

What does the future look like?

“It's pretty scary. There's a lot of uncertainty. I didn't anticipate being here at 34. I didn't anticipate my life looking like this and being in this uncertainty. I've also been dealing with a lot of health issues. Especially in the last few years, I got diagnosed with endometriosis. I have chronic pain and that has added to the uncertainty of my life because I have to work while being in pain. I also want to have kids someday. My biological clock is ticking. My career clock's ticking. I know how to live in anxiety, but the uncertainty is pretty scary.”

“I feel like I'm in a very transitional exploratory part of my career right now because the photography industry has not been reliable for me in the last year or so. I don't know if I can do this forever. I don’t know if it’s going to be something I can lean on. Living in LA by yourself is becoming not manageable especially when you're an artist. I don't make that much money so it's very stressful. I don't want to live this life forever. If I had a lot of money then I would probably stay in Southern California but it doesn't feel logical.”

“I've had this conversation with all my artist friends. We're all trying to find a nine to five, and theyre just not there. I've never only had one job. I've always had at least two or three. So on top of the freelancing you're doing other gigs and that's the only way I know how to make money which is becoming a little problematic now that I'm in my 30s. I don't know if I could do this forever. My body is also not allowing me to so I'm having to rethink, how am I gonna do this?”

“So now I'm teaching art to kids. I'm trying to decide if that's something I want to actively pursue in a more substantial way. I teach every week and on Saturdays at the after school programs. I teach the little bitty guys like four, three and a half all the way up to 18. They're amazing artists. I am very inspired by the very small kids. I envy the way children create art because they don't have all of these rules driven into them that we do. They don't even have the muscle memory in their hand. There's so much human error that is beautiful. They're not trying to impress anyone. They don't care about the final product. I want to make art like the four-year-olds make art. I'm very inspired by that.”

“With little kids you're not supposed to pass any type of judgment, so you're like, ‘Will you tell me about this?’ And the things these kids say to me are wild. I want to be in your brain, this is incredible. Even when I talk to my niece about the art that she's making, I'm like, ‘How did you come to this concept?’ She's like, ‘I don't know, it was just in my head.’ It's so human and raw in a way that is hard to do as an adult.”

Advice for aspiring artists

“Make as much art as possible, till you're sick of it. Make bad art. I always tell my students, art is extremely subjective. What you think is good art may be bad art to me, and what I think is good art may be bad art to you. The thing that I've learned as an artist [is] if you try to make art that you think other people want, it's not that interesting. You're just going through the motions. You have to take a leap of faith into something that you think is really cool but you don't know if other people are gonna like it. Do that. Don't do what you think you're supposed to do. Do the thing that you want to do aggressively. Always be in a state of play. I’ve worked with artists that are obsessed with technicality. You are limiting yourself so much. You have to be in some state of play, you have to make bad art. You have to do things for the sake of the process and stop being so focused on the product. That’s another thing I envy about kids making art. They're doing that. They don't need to be told. When you become an adult, you're so obsessed with the end product that you aren't even enjoying the process of it.”

What gives you hope?

“To know that I've gotten myself out of really difficult situations when I thought I couldn't. I know that I'm capable of doing that. I mean to be honest right now in my life, I feel a little hopeless. I don't know what's next. There's a lot of uncertainty and that's terrifying. [But] you've done hard things before. This is what I tell the kids I teach. They're like, ‘But Miss Shelby, it's so hard I can't do it.’ Yes it's hard, I'm not going to invalidate that it's not hard. But you can do hard things and I know that because I’ve seen you do them. You've gotten yourself out of things like this.”

We continue our conversation and capture the last photos in her apartment in East LA. Gustav lounges affectionately through the room. I ask her if she’s ever seen her neighbors in the apartments next door and she says she doesn’t see many people come and go. I’m reminded of how lonely a big city can feel. Her oil canvas is wedged between the kitchen table and the wall. Her ceramics find a home on all the ledges. She shows me a heavy book with work from one of her favorite photographers. I leave with the impression that she will figure out this transitional period. She’s been doing that her whole life.

Shelby Gordon • April 28, 2025