Shelby then had the privilege of being a full-time, stay-at-home mother to her two children from 2017 through late 2022, when her youngest started preschool. During this time however, she never lost her drive and desire to create, developing and launching a range of earth-friendly, plant dyed accessories in 2018. She enjoyed the opportunity to work on 360 degrees of a collection, from educating herself on plant dyes and hand dying all materials, to fabric and trim selection, to product design and collaborating with fabricators, to photoshoots, website design and copywriting, to customer interfacing and brand development.
Next came a return to fine art, with a gallery show in spring 2024 at Helena Mason Gallery in Santa Barbara featuring her found object wall hangings, "mobiles," and sculptures. These pieces continue on her earth conscious ethos, composed entirely of items she has collected from beaches, trails, and city streets, at once removing trash from our planet, and reframing them as beauty and moments in time.
In the same vein, she has been working on paintings that use a variety of collaged elements, including traditional magazine tear outs, as well as personal photos, her children's drawings, and collected receipts, tickets, or mementos, paired with smaller colorful found objects or household waste, like packaging and broken toys.
Despite the wide range of mediums, formats, and scale, Shelby's art remains consistent in her sense of color and aesthetic, as well as in her approach and concept. Be it items of clothing, small fashion cut outs, large discarded plastic, or family photos, she compiles her materials to create an overall image that is at once organic and methodical. To Shelby, the unexpected combination of a wide range of small items is reflective of life itself: how we travel through the world collecting experiences, relationships, dialogues, lessons, struggles and joys, never knowing how they will add up. But together they become, inevitably, something beautiful, fascinating, complex and unique.
After graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Art from Washington University in St. Louis with a major in Fashion Design, Shelby moved to New York City where she assisted the legendary designer Zaldy. She worked on a small team as they made custom tour costumes for Michael Jackson, Lady Gaga, Britney Spears and more. Through this she discovered her love of styling, at which point she moved to LA to work as a celebrity stylist. From 2012 until she became a mom in 2017, she served as pop star Kesha's sole stylist, dressing her for everything from music videos and performances, to red carpets and media appearances. During this time, she also worked with other artists and editorial publications, in addition to having a blog on all things style for which she created fashion illustration collages to artfully depict the trends she was highlighting, some of which were featured in Darling Magazine.