Throughout her career though, she made time for her love of fine art--a love that started early in life through family outings to the Cleveland Museum of Art.  “I would have started drawing earlier, but I was  an active child,” she jokes. “I never had the discipline to sit still. I could be found playing neighborhood baseball, climbing a tree or exploring the fields and ‘soon-to-be-built-on’ vacant lots in our area. My friends and I were always hunting for new places to discover ‘untouched’ nature.”

Shanahan believes that these childhood experiences evolved into an almost reverent love for painting.  Where she once scouted for natural vistas, she now explores the power of color, shape, edge and placement..  "These are the key to communication. Whatever language you speak; whatever culture; whatever generation, we all react to the visual. Red could mean passion to some. but gore to others.."  She continues, "My approach  has always been influenced  with studies of how science and consciousness meet" she explains. "Thin layers of paint merge, combine, morph…and develop into a work of art. It’s my vision of how ‘reality’ works—overlapping energies mix and combine to create what we see and feel.  And then it’s manipulated by our brain, personal histories, higher self or whatever you call your inner being.. And whatever emotion or meaning bubbles up for the viewer is what I meant to happen."
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In 2018, her painting "Ophelia's Pond Revisited" was selected to be included in the Samsung Frame TV and is consistently one of the top ten paintings selected by subscribers. Recently, her painting, "Shadow Play in Walsingham Park" was selected to be included with LG TV's similar program.
  

When not painting, she's a self-described learning junky including world history, art history, philosophy, and memoirs.  As she explains, "It helps me find the common threads that make us human."

AWARDS AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS

• “Shadow Play in Walsingham Park” selected to be included with LGTV art collection, 2025

• Honorable Mention, St. Phillips Murphy Gallery, “Sacred Spaces”, 2025

• Honorable Mention, First Class Framing. ”Flower Power”, 2024

• First Place Award, First Class Framing, “Destinations”, 2024

• Second Place Award, Beach Art Center, 2023

• Completed 40 portraits for the program Faces Not Numbers, a grass roots effort to comfort those who lost loved ones to Covid 19 and to spread awareness of the pandemic.

• “Ophelia’s Pond Revisited”, selected for inclusion on the Samsung Frame TV and became one of the top ten images used by subscribers. 2018

• Third Place Award, Beach Art Center, 2018

• Peoples’ Choice Award, Beach Art Center, 2017

• Honorable Mention; Beach Art Center, 2017

• “The Soul Remembers” featured in Magical Blend Magazine, 1998

• Honorable Mention, Hower House Art Show, 1995

• Honorable Mention, Cuyahoga Valley Art Center, 1994

• International Clio Award for a specialty pen design, 1987

• Outstanding Fashion Illustration, Kent State University, 1977

• National Gold Key Award from Scholastics, 1972

JURIED FINE ART SHOWS

•Life is Sweet, Bitter, Salty, Earthy, SAAG Gallery exhibit at the Oro Valley Recreation Center, 2026

•Madonnas and Angels, De La Vega Gallery, 2026

•Show Off your Artwork, KBM Art Gallery, online show, 2026

• Sonoran Treasures, The Arizona Sonoran Desert Museum, 2026

• The Desert Alive, De La Vega Art Gallery, 2025

• Art Comes Alive, Cincinnati, Ohio, 2025

• Sacred Spaces, St. Phillips Murphy Gallery, Tucson, AZ, 2025

• Emerging Artists Show, Galvez Woodfield Gallery, St. Pete, Fl, 2023

• Zatista, online source for original art, 2015

• Art in Bloom, Kaleisia Tea Lounge, Tampa, Florida 2014

• The Fine Line between Fine Art and Illustration, Canyon Crossing Gallery, Brattleboro, VT. 1997

• Act III: The works of Three Emerging Artists, Akron, Ohio, 1996

• Act III: The Works of Three Emerging Artists, Hudson, Ohio, 1996

• Hower House Art and Competition, Akron, Ohio, 1995

• Patrons’ Choice, Akron, Ohio, 1994

• Akron Society of Artists Members Show, Akron, Ohio, 1994, 95 & 96

• Crooked River Art Festival, Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, 1994, 95 & 96

• Akron in Art, Tomorrow’s Treasures Gallery, Akron, Ohio 1993, 94 & 95