a fascinating man—a thinker, an imaginer, a crafter, and a highly articulate spokesman for the kind of art he practices.
What
kind of art is that? Well, it took
shape after Shea returned from traveling in Europe. He came back a little frustrated with the contemporary art scene, wanting it to appeal to a broader range of viewers and to exhibit finer craftsmanship. He considered arranging an international biennial exhibition of works that did both. But then he imagined an alternate version of such a show. It was to become a show titled “Seek,” a show that won him his first wide recognition. What Shea imagined was an exhibition of 100 works by 100 different artists. Each work would meet two criteria: 1) his “Meemaw” test (could he explain it so his grandmother would “get it” within five minutes?), and 2) his 3H test, appealing to the Head (the intellect) as well as the Heart (the passions), and exhibiting fine craftsmanship from the Hands.
What a splash “Seek” made! It led to Shea’s TED Talk in 2011, which everyone who reads this piece should go to YouTube and see. It’ll take just 15 minutes, and you’ll be charmed by Shea’s presentation and by his audience’s very evident enjoyment of it, with laughter breaking out repeatedly.
“Seek”
turns out to have been just the first big splash for Shea. His most recent work culminated in an exhibition called Dark Matters displayed in the Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery in Manhattan last fall. It’s a beautiful, engaging expression of Shea’s continuing ability to use all he has experienced and learned in his creative work. It certainly meets his 3H criteria.
Head, or intellect, is there in its theme. Shea explores the dark matter and dark energy that make up 95 percent of the universe, bringing imaginative light to that dark space. According to the review of the exhibition published in The New York Times, Princeton physicist and black-hole expert Dr. Frans Pretorius Shea had produced commented that one painting in The catch, the difference from the exhibition containing twine standard international biennials, a great combination segments looped across a black was that Shea wouldn’t find those background refers to string theory, of the genres he’d 100 works by 100 artists. He would with one string that “seems to become 100 different artists, creating pursued in his two Lyon be misbehaving” but on closer a bio and aesthetic for each, examination “is being held in place producing their work (over 400 majors—fiction and art. by a piece of tape — a symbol . . . works of art in all), and creating an of how even the most ambitious and exhibition catalogue with fictional elegant theories eventually have to bios and documented photos of be mended to fit new data.” “their” works. Shea would be 100 artists. Heart, or passion, is there as well. The passion that’s And that’s what he did, working for two years at his most evident is Shea’s continuing love of his roots. One New Jersey studio, back home on the family farm, and of his several birds’ nests is there (go to his website and points between from California to China. In the end, you’ll see many of them). Shea constructed this one Shea had produced a great combination of the genres of straws he selected for their particular color. And he he’d pursued in his two Lyon majors—fiction and art. made it bottomless, giving it a black hole. Another He created 100 fictional characters, all with their sculpture named “radius” creates another black hole own “passions in life” and “art styles.” And he created out of hay. hundreds of different works of art. Then there are pieces constructed of banana leaves, “Seek” became a complex, multi-work project that of guinea feathers, of wheat straw, of redbud sticks, of comes across as a visual whole in the same way that rocks and crystals largely from Arkansas, of mother Faulkner’s novels do, with their varying fictional of pearl from shells from the White River—the same voices contributing to a whole that both sums up materials, Shea says, “that I used when I was around and transcends its many parts. In its interdisciplinary five years old and made these weird sculptural models nature, “Seek” became Shea’s mighty expansion of the of how I saw the world fit together.” How much more project that had led to the painting on the cover of passionate about his roots could Shea be? And through this issue. (See the sidebar on Page 3.) all the works runs Shea’s joy in using these materials. A reviewer in the Huffington Post declared, “I don’t 4
The Lyon College
Piper
dent. He served on the Board of Directors of Montessori School and United Way, as well as on the Board of Directors of Batesville Chamber of Commerce. He served as committee chairman or co-chairman of the White River Carnival Parade Committee and Batesville Christmas Parade Committee for over 17 years. Mike was an active member of First Baptist Church in Batesville for over 30 years. Survivors include his wife, Myra Coop Kendall of the home; their children and grandchildren. Devilla Williams, ’74, of Beverley, Mass., died Nov. 7, 2012, at age 59 after her courageous battle with cancer. She was born Jan. 31, 1953, in San Francisco, Calif. Devilla was a former resident of Mountain View, Ark., and a graduate of Lyon College. Her career took her many places. She was sales representative for CBS College in New York; senior editor for Dryden Press
in Hinsdale, Ill.; executive editor for Harcourt, Brace and Jovanovich, Inc. of San Diego Calif.; managing editor for Shelly Cushman Series, Consumers Technology in Cambridge, Mass.; director of business and media development for Clickmed Corp. in Gloucester, Mass.; and regional director for E-College in Denver, Colo. She was a well-respected and successful owner and breeder of standard poodles. William A. “Dinko” Gooch, ’80, age 71, of Locust Grove died May 6, 2012, at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Little Rock. He was born in Lake City and had lived in Northeast Arkansas most of his life. He graduated from Trumann High School, where he played football. He studied graphic arts and enjoyed photography. He loved hunting and fishing and carving things out of wood. He was a veteran of the Air Force, having served during the Vietnam era.
Days gone by:
Cheerleaders pose in front of Brown Chapel in 1967.
See yourself in this photo? Tell us about it! alumni@lyon.edu or www.facebook.com/groups/lyonalumni/
Spring 2013
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