"Swinging Shirley" by Stephanie Shroyer

Stephanie Shroyer's art is meant to enhance the outdoor gardens with her bird baths, yard art, and decorative flowerpots. Throughout many creative endeavors (including mosaics), Stephanie found her love for concrete as an art medium. Shroyer's process is shrouded in experimentation, with every new concrete sculpture involving new ingredients and methods. Her most popular sculptures involve leaves and allowing the sculpture to be left in the rain to create impressions that left texture on the sculpture. 

“For years, I worked with mosaics, creating art by gluing small pieces of materials like glass, china, or tile on lost of different surfaces. When I set out a few leftover unfinished concrete bowls in the garden, they filled with water and the animals and birds seemed to love them. Then I noticed leaves drifting down from native pecan trees in the yard stained the concrete a rich, organic brown. The bowls seemed to blend into the garden adding character to the yard.” says Shroyer. Stephanie describes her creative process as "playing in the mud". 

The piece "Swinging Shirley" is a part of her "Concrete Couture" collection. The process includes  saturating clothing in concrete and draping it over a pre-engineered framework that she build out of metal. Swinging Shirley does actually swing, with viewers able to push the piece so she spins. All adding to the fun spirit of Stephanie's art work.