About the Artist
Shawn Davis is originally from Ithaca, New York. His education includes a B.S.
from Cornell University and an M.A.T. from UNC-Chapel Hill. He resides in State College, Pennsylvania with his beautiful wife and two young sons, and
teaches chemistry by day. In addition to tying full-dress
salmon flies, he also enjoys tying and fishing practical flies, and catches most
of his fish on patterns of his own invention.
Shawn is also my brother,
and I’ve had the unique privilege of being in a position to closely observe and
participate in his flyfishing and flytying journeys. Despite growing up in a
family full of outdoorsmen, Shawn never showed any interest in fishing of any
kind. Even when I and his younger brother Brian discovered the magical world of
flyfishing, he remained uninterested. Despite his lack of excitement for any
outdoor sports, though, I always felt that flyfishing and flytying would
captivate Shawn if he would only allow himself to be introduced to their charm.
Because of this I made repeated efforts to include him in my excursions, but he
would always politely refuse my overtures.
In the Spring of 1996, Shawn,
our brother Brian, and a couple of our cousins decided to get together and plan
a summer trip to Montana. About a week before they left for that trip, Shawn
approached me and asked whether I would be willing to quickly go over some
flyfishing basics with him – it suffices to say I was shocked but delighted! He
explained that he just “didn’t think it would be right” if he visited Montana
and didn’t at least make a token effort to flyfish while out there. Still not
quite infected with my enthusiasm, he made it quite clear that a couple of quick
lessons would be all he’d need, and much to my disappointment, he still declined
my invitations to actually go fishing a couple of times before their trip.
Apparently, however, Shawn came to realize on that trip what I had known all
along, because immediately upon his return he began flyfishing obsessively, and
obsessive flytying was not far behind.
Shawn found an old flytying book
on our parents’ bookshelf, began teaching himself how to tie, and quickly
outpaced my own skills in that arena. At first content to develop practical
flies for the sole purpose of catching trout and salmon, Shawn found his talents
leading him to full-dress salmon flies. In the year 2002 he began designing
jewelry-quality hooks and tinsels for his artistic flies. From those first
rudimentary hook-making sessions to today, Shawn has spent countless hours
honing his jewelry-making and flytying skills. Five years later, he
finally released the first of those artistic flies to the public. To this day,
he has never received any formal flytying instruction, choosing to either learn
techniques from a small supply of books or, more often, develop his own
techniques to suit his needs.
As I taught Shawn simple fly-casting back in 1996, I had no idea that one day I’d be witnessing the beautiful works of
art represented here, but I’m certainly not surprised at the direction and
distance that his passions have carried him. Shawn has always been at once
creative, focused, and incredibly disciplined – he loves challenges, and once he
takes on a challenge he embraces and pursues it fully. Flyfishing, and to an
even greater extent flytying, are pursuits that appeal to his nature because
they are endeavors that are infinitely challenging and offer infinite
possibilities for creativity. As the rest of us stand in awe of Shawn’s
creations, I know that he is hard at work refining his craft ever further,
exploring, as artists do, the limitless possibilities of both his own creativity
and the medium through which he's chosen to express it.
– Duane Davis
