Shanaya Dungey

Shanaya Dungey aka The Foolish Know It All, the artist, owner, and designer of TFKIA Art Studio, located in Minneapolis, Minnesota specializes in hand-sculpted wearable artwork which explores bridging the gap between contemporary and urban art and provides accessibility to the arts for non-traditional audiences.  She primarily works mixing her own colors and creating wearable art jewelry pieces sculpted from the beads and baubles she creates completely out of polymer clay on wire and thread.  She practices metalsmithing techniques to create and construct components such as ear wires and other components that increase the fluidity and movement in her wearable pieces. She began metalworking and creating her own components due to the lack of variety and availability in finding hypoallergenic wires that allowed movement in her pieces. Her passion and not wanting to limit who could wear her pieces led her to only use titanium or surgical stainless steel to create components.  Shanaya’s use of simple geometric shapes designed into stunning wearable works of art will always start a conversation.  In her works, she explores bridging clay sculpting and traditional beadwork with contemporary jewelry making.  She continues to explore sharing her vision of how her pieces not only look on the human body but also on display by exhibiting her works in a way that encapsulates her vision and leads viewers to engage their senses of sight and touch in her gallery in Northeast Minneapolis Art Districts’ Northrup King Building. Her unique functional pieces push boundaries and bring about questions.  Shanaya engages underserved communities in the arts by offering classes through community education and formal classrooms for both youth and adults showing them healing and discovery in creating.  She uses the accessible and inexpensive medium of polymer clay to teach her students how to mix and create their own colors and shape components to make their own one of a kind pieces.