from Shore Country Day School — Beverly, Massachusetts

View all teachers

Biography

Shay Cajolet M.Des
www.shaycajolet.com
www.shaycajoletart.com

Shay Cajolet is a professional artist and devoted K-12 Art Educator passionate about the field of Visual Arts and Arts Integration. She has joyfully worked in museums, arts institutions, and schools across the country while collaborating with dedicated educators and other professionals in the field to develop new and existing art programs. Her energy for teaching and love for natural spaces are a continuous source of inspiration for her personal work as well as a teaching artist.

Ms. Cajolet studied at the Jacob Kramer School of Art in England before receiving her Master’s degree in Art and Design from Edinburgh College of Art in Scotland. After being awarded numerous scholarships, she moved from Great Britain to the United States where she continued her studies in the art of printmaking at the prestigious Tamarind Institute of Lithography at the University of New Mexico. From there, Shay moved to the isle of Martha’s Vineyard, the mountains of Sundance Valley in Utah, and then to St. Helena, surrounded by the vineyards of Napa Valley. Here, she continued to enjoy her love of yoga, rock climbing, swimming, snow boarding, photography, running, hiking, and camping. Upon her return, Shay studied art education at the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston, collaborating and co-authoring a publication with renowned art education professor Lois Hetland M.Ed. (Harvard’s Graduate School of Education and Project Zero), researching ways to document learning in the Visual Arts. Shay was delighted at the opportunity to share her findings with educators from the renowned Reggio Emilia schools in Italy. Shay now works from her studio by the ocean on the North Shore in Massachusetts. From here, she hikes, swims, paddle boards, and kayaks with her Australian Cobberdog, Jaya Bela, whom she trained as a therapy dog so as to volunteer at local hospitals and schools.

Shay’s personal paintings and printed impressions are expressive, colorful, and seductive. Organic forms, rich textures, colorful layered glazes, and gestural marks create evocative, lyrical abstractions. She continues to pursue her love of the outdoors and staying active through SUP adventures, yoga, rock climbing, swimming, running, hiking, photography, painting, and kayaking. Shay is also an avid traveler. Her adventurous spirit took her to the coastlines and rain forests on the Hawaiian islands of Oahu and Kauai, Corcovado rainforest in Costa Rico, art galleries throughout Denmark and Germany, islands of the coast of England, and the Sian Ka’an biosphere on the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico.

Personal Art Gallery