In a tiny nook, old doors, yellowed newspapers, broken plantation shutters encase the tight confines of Elizabeth Shannon’s tightly packed installation. New Orleans Jazz escapes from the installation luring viewers into her space. Leaning forward, looking through the muddy windows of what appears to be an old front door, there is a light. Moving closer, smelling old books, newspapers and wood, there appears to be a ladder at the far wall behind the door. Upon closer inspection shelves lining both walls become apparent and placed neatly on the shelves are large bowls of teeth, skulls, and other bones. There is also a stuffed doe’s head lying on its side, an old drum, books, aprons hanging from a nail, and jars and jugs of things collected and saved that are unrecognizable through the muddied glass. Perhaps this installation is representative of a taxidermist’s workspace? Or simply the world as the artist herself has collected it? The mood is one of remembrance: looking back at the old, the fragile, and the deceased through the muddied memories of lost albums, homes, and lifetimes. It is about collecting, storing, and preserving things that are precious or meaningful. It is about not letting go of something because it is no longer useful, and instead clinging to it for its own sake and for the preservation of the memories it has come to represent.
In the statement accompanying her installation, Shannon writes of the found object as something that should be reclaimed, re-examined, and restored in order to achieve a rebirth-a deep exhaling from those with a recycling mind. This is her main focus, nothing wasted, and everything kept. She is keeping everything, collecting everything and whether she has a purpose is unimportant. Old doors, newspapers, books-nothing in this installation is new-everything is found and collected to create this vision of broken memories.
These memories, these bones, reflect the life of the artist. Elizabeth Shannon is a Sculptor and Alligator Trapper who was raised in the bayou and swamp country of Morgan City, Louisiana. She currently lives in the Marigny in Old Franklin Temperance Hall with fellow sculptor Clifton G. Webb and is known for creating narrative installations using Alligators, ladders, cow skulls and many more recycled objects which form part of her life, its explorations and its history.
Alex Gelpi.