Heart of Art: Cindy Shake Designs - CrowCreekCool

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February 08, 2022

Meet Cindy Shake of Cindy Shake Designs (@CrowCreekCool) | Girdwood, AK

Cindy is a versatile visual artist who works professionally as a corporate marketing and communications manager and for more than 25 years the principal of Cindy Shake Design. She has taught sculptural welding at the University of Alaska Anchorage and her welded steel sculptures include public art installations in Anchorage, Alaska. As a published author and illustrator, her popular children's book The Alaska Animal Alphabet is in its 7th printing. Fabrics designed by Cindy are available at fabric stores and through her online shop at Spoonflower. The inspired idea to create a cool, water-resistant growler bag after a wet & snowy walk home from a Girdwood spirits shop, grew to become the pop-up and online shop Crow Creek Coolture.

Crow Creek Cool was formed with her daughter and son as a fun brand of Cindy Shake Design offering one-of-a-kind and hand-crafted provisions that are designed as they say for "Originality & Cooltility." Crow Creek Cool creates, produces, and wholesales, garden flags, bags, stickers, niche art quilt patterns, textiles, downloadable patterns & templates, and fabrics. (Additional designs by Cindy Shake are made available at the Crow Creek Coolture Society6 POD shop.)

Cindy's Creative Process.

I am easily inspired, and my art making is varied and immersive. Carving out time to create, having the space and having the necessary supplies readily available are important. Before I begin working in any medium my mind needs to be free of distractions, so my household chores and my self-imposed mom, wife, and dog owner responsibilities need to be caught up. My work area needs to be clean and organized with all supplies at hand. I look for uninterrupted blocks of free time for art making preferably earlier in the day.

What is your favorite medium to create in?

Assemblage, a three-dimensional visual art form, most often using everyday found Cindy Shake Metal Seal objects. Because I have limited workspace in our cabin, I don’t work in this medium as much as I would like to. The medium requires collecting and keeping a LOT of (cool) “stuff.” My assemblage “Shrine-a-rellas” are created from found objects and are given new life in the form of altars and shrines. The materials I am attracted to and use most often tend to be vintage ephemera, mechanical utilitarian components, and thrift store multiples of cheaply mass-produced consumer flotsam.

When did you first start creating?

In 2^nd grade, after my teacher Mrs. Wilson posted on the class bulletin board a watercolor I painted on yellow construction paper of a friend I admired, who had long, brown braids.

What inspires you?

Everything.

What is your favorite thing to do in Alaska?

"Fishing anywhere, any time, in any weather."

Advice for aspiring artists:

Nature Color Wheel - Cindy Shake Don’t be afraid to keep your day job, art supplies are expensive. The internet has transformed the art world. Social mobility, technology, and the number of new mediums now creating art is amazing. Artists used to be dependent on gallery sales but through online platforms artists can connect directly to potential buyers on a global scale. Digital spaces are redefining those sales and definitions of art. Consider experimenting with POD (print on demand) sites such as Spoonflower and Society6 to affordably explore short runs, limited editions and various mediums of your artwork and designs, it can be inspiring.

If you could go or live anywhere in the world, where would that be?

"...What I circle back to is anywhere there is fresh air, clean water, kind people, near the mountains and the ocean. Pretty much right where I am."

"Value nature, share what you know and be kind. Sharing what you know doesn’t lessen your impact, it amplifies it. In times of uncertainty, nature, kindness, and grace foster connection to others and the world."

We are grateful to carry such incredible work from artists with big hearts and burning passions here at Forests, Tides & Treasures, and consider many of them family. Thank you to Cindy Shake for sharing with us more about her creative processes, and reinforcing what we know: Alaska is where we want to be. It is our goal at FTT to bridge the gap between our vendors and consumers and embrace the humanity that we all share. After all, we are better together.