In March of 2007 Shahla Reynolds launched Sonarta.com, an artist’s portal dedicated to bringing artists together willing to give back to the community.
By October, Reynolds had been awarded the 2007 Oklahoma Redbud Merit Award for Best Website from the Oklahoma Department of Tourism. These days, Shahla is set to create that portal once again this time in DTLA’s Arts District.
Created with the help of web developer Jason Stone, website designer Wendell Reynolds, and her business partner James Reynolds, Sonarta.com’s dedicated group of artists showcased various mediums from ceramics, sculptures and prints to paintings in abstract, contemporary and realistic forms.
A mixture of emerging and established artists were featured on the website and video taped and podcasted in conversation explaining their creative processes, allowing viewers to get a personal connection with them and promote upcoming events.
Just a few years in Downtown LA and Shahla Reynolds sees the need to start up her portal once again. With her works and studio now at Art Share LA, in the Arts District, Shahla has been reaching out to artists who are willing to participate, become part of Sonarta’s community, and get connected through an online audience ready to receive their works.
Like the former site, the LA portal of Sonarta exists not only for artists but to help raise funds for local causes. Artists who are able to donate portions of their proceeds sold on the site are encouraged to reach out.
The Art Work of Shahla Reynolds
Even though Shahla’s pieces constantly grow and change as she experiments with new styles and materials, aqueous stone will always inspire her.
As an accomplished artists herself, Shahla’s stylistic pieces, influenced by the nature of mankind, use colors as the main way to express her emotions and ideas, Her paintings and sculptures are filled with passion, energy and movements using tools and techniques that include the shade and lighting of the medium she is using, whether it is acrylic, alabaster, marble, clay or bronze.
Shahla’s sculpting career grew from her childhood in molding dirt figures in Abadan, Iran to shaping clay molds for bronze statues in Oklahoma.
She picked up drawing skills while learning anatomy, botany and majoring in sciences. As part of her study in learning the interior structure of the human body and muscles, she had to eloquently draw muscles, bones and structures.
Coming to the USA to study, she first studied pre-med before switching to graphic design for her bachelor’s degree.
She was encouraged by her success in international competitions including Sculpture in the Park in Loveland, Colorado, which is limited to 178 artists across the world. From there her repertoire of public artworks pretty much snowballed.
Shahla’s Public Artworks.
Two of Shahla’s pieces, “Just Another Day” and “Eternal Flame”, are centerpieces in a memorial to the Fallen and Living Firefighters of Oklahoma.
In 2003, she was awarded the I-40 Bridge Memorial titled “Going Home” by the Oklahoma Department of Transportation. Shahla designed and created “They Gave Their Last Full Measure of Devotion” for the Oklahoma City Fire Department. It was dedicated in 2017.
Working alone or working with others Shahla Reynolds is one artists/philanthropist ready to create a better future for the artists and the world around her.
You can learn more about Shahla and Sonarta at https://sonarta.com/
