"Art's not like that," Lord says. "You begin to be haunted by the images that you're working with."
Since high school, the Silverton-area artist has seen many of her inspirations materialize through paint.

But in the past seven years since she left nursing and the last of her four children left the house, Lord has been able to devote herself fully to her love of canvas imagery with a renewed drive.

Her prolific output and constant experimentation have made Lord a mainstay of the growing Silverton art scene. Last May several of her recent paintings, nature scenes done in "mixed-media" resin layers, were on display at a month-long exhibit at the Lunaria Gallery on Water Street in downtown Silverton. The transparent layers in these paintings add depth to her imagery, but presented a unique challenge for her.

"The hard part is thinking in three-dimensionality," Lord says, "when you have to plan ahead what you're going to do. I'm a fairly spontaneous painter, so I don't plan very well."

Images of nature abound in her work. A quick stroll through her farm, several acres on the outskirts of town where she and her husband raise nursery stock, reveals several immortalized images: a koi pond, a tree stand, a barn atop a rolling, verdant hillside.

But Lord is already moving on, planning a new series based on the poses of fashion models.

"I'm excited to see the difference," she says.
"I'm fascinated by the use of the body in all of its forms."

Over the years, her motivation has also evolved. "I don't wait to be in the mood," says Lord.

"Instead I just set something up, whether it's paper or canvas or whatever, and just start working."

"What happens is once you start, you do more and more and more."

This discipline has enabled her to be prolific.

Lord generally works on several pieces at once, which in part soothes the muse but also smoothes the "ups and downs" of an artist's self-confidence, trying to maintain the balance between commercial success and artistic integrity.

"It is a business, and it's a tricky business," Lord says, "because you are putting a lot of your own personality, your own self, your own world view, if you will, into your paintings."

Along with four other artists in Silverton, Lord co-founded the Lunaria Gallery in 1995, a cooperative art gallery that provides support to local artists and the local art scene. Over the years, as gallery exhibits have blossomed into town events supported by other local shops and restaurants, the area art scene has thrived, says Lord.

"Silverton has so many artists it's unbelievable -- and artisans," she says.

Area businesses are supporting the art scene, Lord says, by increasingly seeking out local artists' works for their interior decoration.

"That does a lot to infuse the local scene with money and energy and vitality," says Lord. "People who frequent those places really appreciate seeing local people, because they begin to recognize the names."

Such support helps local artists gain confidence, she says, and ultimately provides a critical benefit to society as a whole: perspective.
Art forces people "to slow down and look at things," says Lord.

"It opens all of our eyes to different ways of seeing."

Shari Lord's work will be on display at the upcoming Salem Art Fair on July 18-20, in Bush's Pasture Park. Last year Lord's art was featured on the Art Fair poster.