Artist Interview: Lee Shiney

I had heard the name “Lee Shiney” for years before I finally met him at an art event in Manning, IA. I had no idea he lived so close, the school he lives in in Arcadia is less than 20 miles from Denison. Yes, you read that right. Shiney lives in a school.

Shiney at Chalk Art Fest in Wichita, KS in 2012 

“As my wife and I have reached the point of retirement age, we jumped off the leap of faith cliff and bought the old school in Arcadia, Iowa to live and work in,” Shiney explained. I had hoped to get a tour of the school earlier this year, but alas life and previous engagements have gotten in the way! Sometime soon, though.

As far as Shiney’s artwork goes, he hasn’t resigned himself to one medium.

A shot of Shiney's studio

“I’m kind of all over the place, and I don’t like to pick favorites,” he said. “I see things, rather, as dropping into a particular medium, or technique, or whatever, and focus on it, working through iterations, teasing out perceived failures and successes, approaching things with a kind of engineering mentality of breaking things and embracing mistakes until I feel like I’m making some kind of a breakthrough.”

“I really like that I’m not pigeonholed into one signature style, and within all the different categories of things I’ve made, I enjoy all the variations within them,” he replied when I asked if he had a favorite piece. “Things I’ve particularly liked: ‘Moiré Wheels,’ a kinetic sculpture of 50 interconnected bicycle wheels that created a pulsing effect that exhibited at the Wichita Art Museum 2008-2010.” Shiney also listed his “Sequence” pieces, which are a sectional 60-foot long acrylic on reclaimed pallet lumber with an assist from a turntable-driven pantograph; his early “Automatic” series that he worked on over a number of years where he experimented with slowly spinning canvases and different painting techniques; and more recently his “Contrapuntalisms” that are encaustic-based collages with photos and found objects.

"Nocturne" acrylic on canvas, 16"x44"x2"

Shiney doesn’t have any upcoming exhibitions at this point, and is instead focusing on creating work that makes him happy.

What is he working on right now? “Designing/building some large rolling easels to hold 6x6 foot unstretched canvases, and use these to make some really large-scale works. There’s probably an 8x8 foot option in the future too… I figure that should get me through the winter.”

"61 Cygni" acrylic on canvas, 30"x78"x2"

“I just spent a few months with my photography roots, but working with iPhone images, manipulated with Affinity Photo, and inkjet printed on an old Epson wide format. Now, I’m taking a break from that and going back to acrylics, experimenting with fluid and pouring mediums, and also using Montana Gold spray acrylics.”

"LS22-002" acrylic on canvas, 42"x42"x2"

How does Shiney title his artwork, when it’s not necessarily made with an end subject in mind? “I’m laughing because it’s something I have perpetually stumbled on,” Shiney admitted. “I try to catalog everything with something like LS23-001 (2023, and work #1 of that year), etc. Beyond that I’ve used categories (Automatic 27), researched titles (The Moons Venus Should Have Had), and even something I called the S5 naming system where I found and printed off all the five-letter Scrabble words (this was years before Wordle, thank you) and randomly assigned names from the list, mostly to thumb my nose at convention. Nowadays, I pretty much stick to catalog numbers.”

 

"LS21-021" acrylic on canvas, 57"x36"x1"

“I really just enjoy making things,” Shiney said, especially when it comes to “’making things that make things.’ So I have a 2.1 meter turntable that I built years ago that is still in use for large circle paintings, and several small ones. I make various extensions and compasses and spray tools that are used for painting. I’ve built motorized, computerized devices for dripping and moving paint.” He even has an old Roomba vacuum cleaner that he’s used for random marker drawings! “Mine is a long list of built and hacked things that help make art.”

What’s an issue or stumbling block you’ve encountered? “Oh, life? How does one try to create consistency, a work ethic, while (in the past, for me) working a job, or now where I’m essentially a maintenance man of a 15,000 square foot school building that we now live and work in? Being able to make art as one’s life mission, and making time to actually do that, is the real challenge.”

"Automatic 69" acrylic on canvas, 47"x47"x2"

Any advice for artists just starting out? “Make art and show your best work,” Shiney said. “Be able to talk about what you do; do not hide behind some notion that ‘art should speak for itself.’ Don’t worry about having to have just the right materials and supplies, look for cheap or free alternatives. Study the masters, including the recent ones…they are giving you permission to do the things your friends and family will question. And creating means actually making something that someone can hold in their hands (thank you Sir Ken Robinson.)”

“One gets to be 70 and it’s WTF, where did the time go? Where did the life go? If you want to make art your priority, then do it. And literally shut out the naysayers. You will reach a point (possibly in terror) where you realize there’s been a lot of water under the bridge… Becoming what…late middle age??…has sharpened our focus on what’s ahead. I also had cancer in 2001 which sort of set the stage for finally focusing at least part of my time on art.”

To learn more about Shiney’s artwork, check out his website at LeeShiney.com, or follow him on Facebook and Instagram.

Art in Non-Art Places

Disclaimer: I don’t know most of the details behind the art in this post. If anyone does know the name of the artist, title, really anything about these pieces, please let me know so I can give credit where it’s due!

There are a number of places that we expect to find art. We definitely expect to find artwork in galleries and museums, duh, but where else? How about graffiti on train cars and buildings? Yes, illegal artwork still counts as artwork. There’s also public art sculptures – some towns and cities even make a whole thing of it, like the lighthouses in Storm Lake.

One of my little quirks is checking out the art in non-art places. You know, like the dentist’s office. Not a place you’d go to specifically look at art, but they have it there anyway. My dentist’s office has a bunch of photos of people and animals smiling big toothy grins. Go figure, right? Our hospital has a range of framed prints, from x-rays of flowers to some benign landscape paintings in calming, neutral colors. The artwork in the children’s hospital has framed prints of children’s artwork showing brightly colored rainbows and animals.

...Someone had to design it, I guess.

In the past year, I did a lot of traveling for my job to a number of banks. Midwestern banks, even, which sounds at first like the art equivalent of eating a bunch of saltine crackers with nothing to wash them down with. And me being me, I always tried to take a moment to take a glance at what they had on their walls. The majority of the art was what you would expect bank art to be: framed geometric prints, probably purchased at a big box store, neutral and metallic colors, yadda yadda yadda. Second most common were “artist-enhanced prints” which are prints that a real person added a few select globs of paint to.

If it were up to me, I'd title it "Home".

But every so often I’d come across some real gems, and I don’t mean that sarcastically. Like the one above, which was huge and beautiful! I’d like to point out here that my friend Kelli (host of the Moms Who Create Podcast) is 100% convinced that I hate abstract art, all because I don’t like Jackson Pollock’s artwork (for the record, I still defend it as art.) This piece though, this piece really spoke to me. I had a few minutes to wait that day, so I got up close and personal. It was real art! Not a reproduction, but a real canvas covered in paint by an artist’s hand and brush! Just look at those colors!

Another segue here, but hands down the worst part about looking at the art in non-art places is they don’t label the pieces! I try to make a note of any signatures I can find on the pieces, but more often than not there’s nothing there to go on, and the employees don’t always know the story either. What I wouldn’t give for a little printed card to tell me who, what, when, and why!

Thanks for signing your work legibly, Joanne!

I was pretty excited about finding these because it was an entire series of around a dozen black and white drawings by artist Joanne Burgeson! They are matted and framed, roughly 10”x8” each. The subjects are different historic buildings from the town, beautifully rendered in ink. What a perfect series to have on display in a local business!

I wrote a whole post about why I love tree art.

This piece was a happy surprise in a tiny bathroom, and the first painting I had seen while traveling for work that really made me stop and pay attention while I was out and about. I think the signature says “hagstrand”, but it could be “haqstrand”. I did ask the manager what the story was behind the piece, and she had no idea. I told her if they were ever going to get rid of it, I’d like first dibs. Upon first glance, this piece is a clean design of some trees, right? Absolutely. But when I looked closer, there are so many subtle colors, lines, and textures used.

I'll admit, I don't actually hate it.

And just for fun, let’s also give a special shout-out to the orange wallpaper also living in that tiny bathroom. 😉

 

An Unhinged Rant about Too Many Projects

When I started this blog in the Spring of 2022, I was a stay-at-home mom who spent many a quiet night and tiny pockets of minutes working on my artwork. I was crazy productive! I created so many new pieces of art; I wrote, illustrated, and self-published a children's book, and I volunteered and participated in a handful of local art organizations. I was writing blog posts like crazy, and publishing them weekly. I even wrote a blog post about what it was like to be an active artist and parent of tiny humans, and you can check it out here!

But nothing in life remains the same, and sudden out-of-left-field life changes are pretty commonplace for me. About a year ago, I took a job working full-time in a town about half an hour away from home. So 45+ hours a week now, I'm busy. Don't get me wrong, I really love my job and am happy to be working! But it doesn't leave me a whole lot of time to fit in EVERYTHING that I want to.

It's not just making art or writing for this blog. It's time with my kids (bedtime alone is a half-hour ordeal every night, and that’s when it goes smoothly!) and let’s not forget spending time with the absolute love of my life, my husband. It's time outside in the garden. It's time spent exercising. It's trying to get enough sleep each night. It's time spent staying in touch with friends/family. It’s time spent working on our house, because I still want to finish painting the basement walls, and it's time being creative - not just painting or drawing, but writing, too. I've got about three more books in the works right now: a third children's picture book, a book of haiku poems, and a fiction novel that has become my new creative obsession. I just... I just want to do ALL THE THINGS!

This. All of this.

I can't possibly be alone in this frustration. Anybody else out there going through the same thing? I mean, I feel like just being a parent of young kids puts you in this boat. Right? RIGHT?

I personally know a number of artists who set aside their creative pursuits to focus on their families and day jobs. When retirement finally arrived, they were able to take the time to pursue what they always wanted to do: make art. And while that’s a viable option, and I personally love when my long-term plans come to fruition… I just can’t wait that long, and life is short anyway.

The past few years my technique was to sacrifice my sleep. In exchange, I have permanent dark circles under my eyes and I drink strong coffee (with creamer, I’m not that hardcore.) It worked better when I could take a nap with my babies. But they are older now, and I’m not the parent at home all day anymore.

I do still try to fit my creative pursuits into the tiny spaces I find during the week. I usually have 15-30 extra minutes on my lunch break. Sometimes, I’ll take a walk around town. But more often I can be found with headphones on and some sort of notebook or sketchbook. I usually have to set a timer for myself, lest I get lost in the creative process and forget to go back to work! I’ll set an alarm to get up early every other Tuesday so I can publish my blog posts before I go to work. I make the time, here and there, when I can.

I’m certainly not quitting, if that thought crossed your mind! Absolutely not! I love this blog, and I love painting, drawing, and writing. I love volunteering and going to art events. I love my family, and I love my friends. I love my job. I just need to find my balance between everything, to fit it all in, because I still want to do all the things and I don’t want to wait, I want to do them now. Or at least as soon as possible, because as the saying goes: Rome wasn’t built in a day.