behind the scenes #1----- video interview!

Here's me being vulnerable and showing you a little video interview of Marisa and me for our shows. Marisa's paintings were in the gallery beside mine. The vulnerable part comes in because of course, its weird to see myself on video, I feel like I rambled way too much, I blanked on simple phrases like "cardboard packaging", and I wish I talked more about Madeleine L'Engle than what was going to be in each day! anyway---it will give you a look at what day 1 looked like in person. Marisa's interview is first, and mine starts about halfway through. enjoy :)

Biola Art Gallery from Zach King on Vimeo.


and then here's my part of the article that went with it. I think Colleen did an amazing job:

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Explorations of Art and Life

By Colleen Van Houwe

March 25, 2009

After two years of preparation, Shannon Leith and Marisa Rountree kicked off the first week of this semester’s senior art shows, installing their culminations of hard work, planning and art making.

Both artists demonstrate how two different art forms, photography and painting, can explore beauty and life. While Leith takes Biola through her journey of the exploration of life, Rountree invites us to join her in the exploration of paint, pattern, and design.

Leith’s “Today” show consists of photos from 100 different days and life and practice into the gallery. Her original intentions were to go out on walks and capture the beauty and rarities of life. However, as she engaged in this project, over 75 percent of her photos stayed confined to her apartment.

“It wasn’t this big adventurous thing,” she said. “It’s looking at the things we see every day and the artist being the one to find something new in it … being able to explore it in a different way and discover something completely different about something so familiar.”

She began to explore the meaning of words like habit, rhythm, space, and liturgy and their role in everyday life. This long, detailed process led her to a very simple way of understanding her project. It is the exploration and life of today. She quoted Eva Hesse as her inspiration, who said, “My art and my life are not separate; they’re together.”

Leith described the process as “peeling up little layers of life” and catching a glimpse of what is there. “This process has helped me see things that I might not have noticed before,” she said.

The goal for her work is to be more attuned to what she encounters in daily life and move those who view her art to achieve the same thing. Therefore, different photos will be displayed each day giving the viewers the same experience of “newness” that Leith encountered during the shooting process.

“I want people to walk away with a sense of delight and excitement – doing life, whatever that means for each person,” Leith said.

“Each person’s daily life can be a place for them to find newness, excitement, a place to explore rather than a place that’s mundane and boring. God gave us seven days to live. What’s here for me today? … there is something there.”

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

and to end with, the awkward, stiff photo of me, sitting in a dress on the gallery floor! woo!

day 5! ::::::: one step {polaroid installation}

"I dont mean to criticize, Mother, but there's something wrong with it."
"With what, child?"
"The way Sister Mariana looks out the window at the flowers, and the way she enjoys that orange."
"Well?"
"She enjoys it too much."
Mariana's mouth was full of juicy pulp.
"Aren't we supposed to?

MADELEINE L'ENGLE
Glimpses of Grace

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////

ending with Madeleine L'Engle was special to me, because she's my favorite, especially because we share a birthday. i love Madeleine L'Engle.

in celebration of enjoying life, day five was a polaroid give-away! i taped a few hundred to the wall for people to take and keep. i put them on the back wall of the gallery so it was kind of a surprise, and i found that some people didn't even read the little sign that said "please take one", and were horrified that people would rip one off the wall and walk out of the room. ha! so many available social experiements. love it.

PLEASE TAKE ONE >>> choose your favorite and its yours to keep (only one! please let everyone enjoy)

i went in there a few times and really loved hearing what people liked about the ones they chose. other people's interpretations on blurs of light were so, enlightening.

this one's a Carravagio!

it reminds me of mold

and here's what was left after the harvest,

there are about 20 left, and i want to give one to
you
!


email me (shannon@shannonleith.com) with your address, and i will mail you one! only to the first 20 though, so hurry!

hoping to spice up your mailbox....!
------------- shannon

day 4::::::refining {polaroid installation}

"Shampooing the hair, washing the body, brushing the teeth, drinking enough water, taking a daily vitamin, going for a walk, as simple as they seem, are acts of self-respect. They enhance one's ability to take pleasure in oneself and in the world."

-KATHLEEN NORRIS
Quotidian Mysteries

day four was close to me, because before i ever decided to do the show in five parts, i always knew i wanted to frame them. having the entire show framed seemed too boxed in though---- so i started exploring other methods of showing my polaroids, which led to ideas like the grid, the canvases and the museum cases. anyway---- i love these framed pieces, and i chose this series of photos specifically because it's one of my favorite. inspired by Kathleen Norris' book Quotidian Mysteries, i've been intrigued with daily habits like laundry and cooking---tasks that could be seen as boring and mundane. this is a series of photos i took while i was doing my laundry one day.

enjoy!

it wasn't this dramatic in person, but hey. run with it.

here's each one,

one of my favorite! lines of light on the ceiling that i found while lying on the floor that afternoon,

here's a few scans of the polaroids since you
can't see them very well in those little photos,

i'm in love with the white ones::::::::::::

one more day!
come back tomorrow!
shannon

day 3::::::::::seeing {polaroid installation}

"The world is so visually complicated that the word 'banal' is not an intelligent word to use."

WALKER EVANS

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

there it is,
day three.
seeing.
four feet by four feet of the pavement with leaves, a plastic bag and light leaks.
-------------------------------
-------------------------
-------shannon

day 2:::::::::finds {polaroid installation}

"There are lots of things to see, unwrapped gifts and free surprises."

ANNIE DILLARD

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
here's what you see as you enter my side of the gallery (the other side was an amazing set of abstract paintings by Marisa Rountree!). The quotes that I'm putting at the top of each post were posted on that little white box under the orange today.

i kept two walls the same from day one, but changed the right wall and added in the museum tables,

for these documentation photos I had to take out the museum tables so you could see this whole wall---- the image on the right is an enlargement from a polaroid, which some people thought was construction, which i thought was awesome. and that line on the left is a project i did two years ago, the first polaroids i ever took!

i focused on PROCESS for day two.
all the little behind the scenes bits that eventually made up the body of work.

here is my SX-70 Polaroid, the camera i used for most of the photos. my friend Riley gave it to me, a gift i am still speechless about. wow.

i called him one day to see if i could borrow it, and he casually said, "yeah! you can have it, actually. i never use it."
WHAT! WHO DOES THAT!

i'm semi-OCD and can't throw things away like
Polaroid packaging because i think its pretty.

i also really like tape.

and my sketchbook. these drawings are for days one and two!

also in that case, =

and as a nice ending shot,
the door with my fun vinyl lettering on it.

there's my finds for you!
-------------------shannon

day 1:::::::scatters {polaroid installation}

"Then the quails begin their sweet whistling in the wet bushes. Their noise is absolutely useless, and so is the delight I take in it. There is nothing I would rather hear, not because it is a better noise than other noises, but because it is the voice of the present moment, the present festival."

--- THOMAS MERTON
Rain and the Rhinoceros

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

the show has happened!
today was a success, it surprised ME in lots of ways, and I'm going to take you blog-readers on a 5-day journey through each installation of the show, and THEN I'm going to do a few behind-the-scenes, special features posts, mostly because i'm in love with documentaries and the special features are my favorite part. i love revealing secrets. so, stay with me for the next week or so---- check back each day, and we'll have some fun. plan?

this was the first installation. an organic grid on the wall with about two hundred polaroids as well as CANVASES of polaroids!

the left wall,

this wall was the first one we did------- it's the back wall of the gallery, and it is my FAVORITE! the differences between each white or grey one are so fascinating. obsessed with this.

the right wall,

brussel sprouts!

woohoo!
enjoy today----------
shannon