The first exhibit of 2012 opens Tuesday, January 24 at the Shiawassee Arts Center in Owosso. Artists Kathleen Shanahan of Wichita, Kansas, Susan McGuire of Corunna and Pamela Frazier O'Neil of Milford will be displaying and selling their multi-media work. The opening reception to meet the artists, mix and mingle to the music of Doug Cornell and enjoy great food is Friday, January 27, 6-8pm. The show continues through March 4. Sponsors of the exhibit are Cadwallader-Lord-Hahn Insurance, Clark Shanahan, Suzette & Gary Tyler and Willoughby Press.
Kathleen Shanahan, former Head of Drawing at Wichita State University, is a painter printmaker who grew up in Owosso. Her interest in cultural anthropology and cross-cultural comparison led her to spend a year of grant-funded research as Visiting Scholar at the National Museum of Ethnology in Osaka, Japan. Since then her associative base has widened to include travels to France and Egypt, as evidenced in her show with SAC. Her work is complex and joyous which she calls "a wonderful marriage of graceful beauty and kitschy clutter". Of printmaking, she says, "The surprise effects of monotyping, collagraph, chine colle, etc., often dictate the next layer, the next step or aesthetic decision that adds more complexity to the narratives". Shanahan has shown internationally in many group and solo exhibitions including a prior show with SAC in 2003. Some of her images are included in a 2011 mixed process printmaking book "Mixed Media Printmaking". She will be giving a short talk about her work during the opening reception.
Susan McGuire mainly paints in watercolor or pastel and is currently experimenting with "representational" abstracts because they are of recognizable, but changed subjects. Art has been a constant in most of her life. She started out drawing and acrylic painting and dabbled in every medium while earning an art teaching degree from Alma College in 1975. Inspired by nature and intrigued by people she states, "I have numerous ideas for subject matter and struggle only with corralling my time to bring them to realization. Art satisfies the yearning to exercise my mind and get my fingers dirty. If I end up with a work on public display or that is purchased - that is just a huge bonus." Since 1984 she has worked in Owosso at the Willoughby Press, a commercial print shop.
Pamela (Frazier) O'Neil sees intense color in her daily life as well as in her dreams and she believes this is a gift she has been given. "I feel my art --- not paint my art", she explains of her watercolor and mixed media work. "Life is a contrast and that is exactly what flows from me during one of my profound creative sessions". Raised in Owosso, O'Neil is a registered ASIS Interior Designer and also is a poet and writer in addition to her watercolor/mixed media artwork. Her exhibitions include one with SAC in 2000.
The Shiawassee Arts Center is located at 206 Curwood Castle Drive in Owosso and is open Tuesday through Sunday, 1-5pm. The Arts Center features the
artwork of local and statewide artists in eight galleries including the Frieseke Gallery and a specialty Gift Shop. The public is welcome and there is no admission charge. The Shiawassee Arts Council, celebrating its 40th anniversary in 2012, is a non-profit corporation whose mission is to encourage participation and appreciation of the arts. For more information call the Arts Center at 989.723.8354 or visit www.shiawasseearts.org.