How Shelby K Cook Preserves Feelings and Memories Through Visual Storytelling

Shelby K Cook’s art is deeply connected to nature, memory, and personal experiences. In this interview, she shares her journey as an artist, how growing up in the Pacific Northwest shaped her love for nature, and how she uses painting to capture emotions and fleeting moments. She discusses finding inspiration in everyday life, handling creative blocks, and experimenting with different techniques to balance realism with painterly expression. Through her words, we get a glimpse into her creative process, the meaning behind her work, and the emotions she hopes to convey through her art.

Shelby K Cook was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest of the United States, where the West Coast landscape of mountains and forests fostered a lifelong love of nature. She studied fine art in college, earning her BFA from Western Washington University and a BA in Art History. After graduating, Cook moved to Seattle, WA, where she continues to paint and run her studio practice. Focused on using painting to retain and revisit memories, Shelby draws inspiration from her travels and everyday life. A connection to nature stemming from a childhood love of forests means she seeks interesting environments to inspire her. Often using dense natural forms and soaring birds as metaphors for different human experiences, she is drawn to exploring the relationship between people and the spaces they inhabit, trying to capture liminal spaces and transitional moments. While painting, she allows her current feelings and recollections of a place to alter the image as she paints to capture memories and emotions tangibly.

1. Where do you find inspiration for your artwork?

I draw most of my inspiration from nature and my own experiences and memories. Much of my artwork ties back to nostalgia in some way – I am always drawn to capture specific moments in time, whether because of an emotion I want to capture or a beautiful place I experienced while travelling, hiking, or exploring. I am always looking for small, seemingly insignificant moments that I think would make a good composition or express something I’m feeling now. Because of this, when I need inspiration, I will often look back through photos I’ve taken while travelling or hiking or will go outside and explore my backyard of the Pacific Northwest forests and parks. I also love painting en plein air, and when I’m not feeling inspired to work on my larger studio pieces, I love getting outside and working on smaller plein air pieces to get myself painting and to inspire myself.

I am always drawn to capture specific moments in time, whether it is because of an emotion I want to capture or a beautiful place I experienced while traveling or hiking or exploring.

Shelby K Cook

2. Can you tell us about a particular piece of art that holds special meaning for you?

My piece titled “Rooftop in Vienna” is one of my favourite pieces I’ve ever created. The inspiration photo for it was from a trip I took with my brother and his wife, and the painting reminds me so much of the combination of peace and excitement I felt while travelling with them. Every time I look at it, I remember that day and the emotions I felt. Beyond the memories it evokes for me, I also love it stylistically. The warm undertones were not my normal approach, and the complicated composition was a very intriguing puzzle for me. Despite those things, creating the piece felt so easy – one of those paintings where everything seemed to flow and go right. It’s a piece I look at and feel that I learned from, and it has helped evolve my style and approach.

3. How do you handle creative blocks or periods of low inspiration?

I’ve been facing this a lot recently with how stressful my day job has been, and I approach this in two ways, depending on my mental state at the time. First, even lacking inspiration, getting to the studio and working on anything will eventually get me started again. Even if it doesn’t turn out well, establishing a habit of painting keeps me working and eventually, I’ll get past that block. If I’m feeling uninspired and worried about messing up my current WIP, I just work on something new or different to at least keep myself creating.

Suppose my mental state is so off that I can’t even work up the effort to get to the studio. In that case, I try to do as many small things to inspire myself as I can manage – whether it is sketching a painting idea that I’ve been toying with in my mind, doodling anything at all if I’m completely out of ideas (my go-to subject is trees), just looking through my camera roll for photos that might strike some inspiration, or just getting outside and going on a walk and trying to think about possible paintings. I’ve been learning to be easier on myself when these periods strike while establishing a habit of making sure I’m always doing something tied to my art, even if it isn’t necessarily creating.

4. What role does experimentation play in your art practice?

I feel I am still trying to find the process that works best for my painting style, so while I know I want to paint realistically, I’m always trying to learn different ways to capture the scene and emotion I am trying to convey. Because of this, I often experiment with different ways of starting a painting – whether a quick, washy sketch with paint or drawing it out on canvas beforehand. I have also been experimenting with different brushes and techniques to get softer edges and different textures, which I am looking for to keep the details more interesting while still capturing the realism I want. I like seeing how far I can push painterly and abstract moments within the small details while keeping the overall image realistic.

I draw most of my inspiration from nature and my own experiences and memories.

Shelby K Cook

5. Are there any upcoming exhibitions or projects you’re particularly excited about?

It’s still mostly some notes/ideas in a sketchbook, but I’m very excited about the next series of paintings I plan on doing. Leaning heavily into nature as a metaphor, I have several pieces in my head that are going to explore some heavier mental issues I’ve dealt with/continue to deal with, such as anxiety and depression. While most of my art is personal to me, this series will be almost putting myself and my feelings under the microscope, and I’m excited to see how that turns out and how it resonates with people.

Through her paintings, Shelby K. Cook captures more than just landscapes—she preserves feelings, memories, and fleeting moments in time. Her passion for nature, combined with a personal and introspective approach, makes her work deeply relatable. Whether she is painting a scene from her travels or finding beauty in the every day, Cook’s art speaks to the power of visual storytelling. To learn more about Shelby, visit the links below.