Stuart Shepard is eighteen, self-taught and has only been working with textiles for two years, but that hasn’t stopped them from already seeing success with their art.
Stuart Shepard is eighteen, self-taught and has only been working with textiles for two years, but that hasn’t stopped them from already seeing success with their art.
“I work with textiles and art that can be worn on the body and it’s all really sculptural. I love felt – felt is my favorite thing to work with its like my number one thing,” Shepard said. And it’s visible in her complex, layered and beautifully striking final products.
Shepard said one of their proudest accomplishments thus far is an enormous felt dress with spikes on it (pictured below.) They said it took working on it for eight or more hours a day to create.
“I really love the idea of taking up as much space as you possibly can—like claiming a space by occupying it. Especially with the pointed felt pieces, they’re pointy so you don’t want to touch them but at the same time they’re really inviting to touch,” they said.
The dress was part of the portfolio Shepard submitted to the VMFA fellowship program. The fledging artist earned a trip to New York for her accomplishment. Shepard has also been awarded two scholarships to VCU, where they will be going to school as a freshman in the fall.
“I applied to VCU for fashion design because everything I’m doing is wearable, but then I was like wait…this isn’t wearable at all. So I might end up doing sculpture,” Shepard said.
Shepard is working two jobs at Urban Outfitters and Rumours Boutique to help pay for school and said they haven’t been working on their own art as much recently because of the hectic schedule.
“I’m excited for school to start in the fall at VCUarts. I’m just so excited to learn. There are so many things I don’t know that I just really want to know, right now I’m really hesitant to work with certain things because I want to learn how to do it the correct way,” they said.
Shepard is self-taught and has only been making wearable art for the last two years, since they taught them self how to sew when they learned how to thread their mom’s old sewing machine.
“My first dress looked like a pillow-case, it was bad, I was like ‘this never happened!’ and threw it out, but felt is much more forgiving,” they said laughing.
Shepard’s come a long way since their first encounter with the sewing machine, though. Aside from felt, Shepard also works with pleather, and even spent an entire semester working only with white and silver pleather and clear vinyl.
“It was more futuristic and those were more wearable items, very sterile, clinical things. I was trying to make everything look very clinical, but there’s also like clear cut outs and stuff so its still sexual but in a really controlled kind of environment,” Shepard said.
Shepard said they draw inspiration from other designers, but doesn’t plan out their work too much and instead tries to work “intuitively.”
“I don’t think about it too much before I start working. I just kind of work and figure it out along the way—being self-taught I just let things take their own path,” they said.
While it’s no doubt impressive, Shepard said that being self-taught and only 18 sometimes works against them at times.
“I have a hard time getting people to take me seriously because I’m self taught and I’m also really young. I also present myself really femininely and I feel like people don’t take me seriously because of that,” they said.
Shepard said that they don’t typically mention their work because they don’t want to put themselves out their until they’re really sure of it.
“I’m just working and trying to go to school as much as I can. I don’t want to be remembered for something I’m not completely proud of.”
