Celebrating their anniversary in the Tlaquepaque Arts and Crafts Village, S J Shaffer, along with Director Nancy Powell, has moved to a larger location. With this move they have welcomed in one of the legends of the Southwest, artist and oil painter, Maria Sharylen. Sharylen's paintings (pictured) are alive with the people and the customs of the Southwest. She is recognized for her deep palette of crimsons, magentas and cerulean blues. Sharylen's paintings have been exhibited in several museums and held in important collections nationally and internationally. She was the president and founder of the American Academy of Women Artists (retired), and the co-founder and president of The Other Side of the West, Desert Caballeros Museum, in Wickenburg, Arizona. The museum exhibit traveled for four years throughout the country. She has been in many art magazines including Phoenix Home & Garden, Cowboys & Indians, and Southwest Art, to mention a few.Along with Maria Sharylen, they have welcomed into the gallery internationally known, contemporary Navajo artist, Shonto Begay, an illustrator and painter. Born in a hogan in Shonto, Arizona, to a Navajo Medicine Man and his mother, a Navajo weaver and sheep herder, Begay became interested in drawing at a very young age. His paintings executed in acrylic, Begay's expressionist canvases often draw comparisons to Vincent Van Gogh. Each painting is built by a complexity of simple brush strokes that are applied like a visual chant. Begay's paintings have been exhibited in The Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian in Santa Fe, The Phoenix Triennial Exhibit at the Phoenix Art Museum, and American Indian Contemporary Arts Museum in San Franisco. Begay has also done many murals for the state of Arizona. Begay is also an illustrator of children's books and does speaking engagements all over the country.
