The Curious Case of Charcoal and Cahalane
Obsession could be identified as the hallmark of any great artist. After speaking with Shannon Cahalane, it was no question that the mixed media artist has amassed a wide range of obsessions that intermix cohesively and unpretentiously, all stemming from a homegrown spirit of rampant and explosive creativity.
Shannon’s works run the vast gamut of commentaries on the intersection of nature and modern structures, from the many moving parts of city life, and the overall relationship between places. She often finds herself in the same locations, to see and render a different dimension of that atmosphere every single time. Her collection of sketchbooks, like an invasive species, showcases a hobby-turned-duty that has taken over and refuses to halt until yet another masterpiece among many is born.
Big Sky Swallows: New York, August, 2022
Charcoal, Conte
50x36 in
Our visit to Shannon’s studio is part of a larger series from Eyes on Art, titled “After the Storm.” Inspired by one of our shows, “The Storms Inside," this initiative aims to shed light on artists' journeys, their studios, and their creative processes.
Upon arriving at Shannon’s abode, one could instantly sense that her living quarters were the quintessential launching pad for numerous variations of creative ideas to spring forth at any given time from myriad mediums and disciplines. Sporadic frames of beautifully armored humans merged while abstract paintings lined the walls of her living room. Manipulated glass trinkets from her mother appeared, and ceramic mugs the artist handmade were used to serve tea and coffee to anyone who is lucky to come into her orbit. The feeling of lived-in coziness merged with an all-encompassing environment of family and friendship.
Brooklyn (Bushwick), New York
Pleasant music from the latter half of the twentieth century played on a tiny radio box, artisanal and elegant earrings dangled in the distance, a candle with messily melted wax over a champagne bottle from an unforgettable New Year celebration lined the window, and prints/photos/sketches/drawings were scattered intentionally throughout. An assortment of black boots, mules, and worn shoes (one with a knit covering) hung on the door.
Shannon may not be a native, but she fits into the Brooklyn community of creatives like a glove. Hers was the home of a maker. She is a craftswoman whose innate exploratory nature lends itself to whatever and wherever the moment desires, growing organically and compulsively over time and space. Shannon carried a spirit of playfulness and a childlike joy as laughter filled her home and the conversations leading up to and after our interview. In the artist’s studio, herein laid tomato cans that served as containers for paint brushes and books on the history of calligraphy in the Far East. Underneath the slither of a window arch, a tiny collection of dried plants lived in bottles that resembled a biologist’s laboratory.
Douglas Henry Lewis Jr: Can you describe a typical day in your studio?
Shannon Cahalane: It starts when I come home from work, I work a customer job at a museum and the art acts as a form of decompression. I'll gather my little crate, I'll put in whatever materials and I'll go up to the roof. Normally, I don't really have, if I'm working outside, an image of what I want in mind. What I draw has a lot to do with the weather, the light, the sky, and the movement of the street below, which varies so much depending on the day. If I'm working inside, it's a lot more structured. Normally, I'll have a reference photo or some books that I'll turn to find inspiration for a mark or form or figure. But if I'm working outside, it's just letting the world, whatever is at... whatever sounds, whatever movement, the weather is, that all will impact what I do. The constant shifting of attention dictates the marks I make.
DHL: Do you feel that your creative practice is a form of release?
SC: I would say, I think it used to be more of an emotional thing. It can still be that point, but now, it's just something I need to return to. It's not so much about that release. At moments, it was totally about needing to tap into something, I needed to listen to a sad song on repeat to make the work I want to make. But now, I'm trying to come at it more from a place of curiosity. But there's definitely points where it's such an in-depth emotional thing.
With the sketchbooks, it's more about appreciation and exploration of deeply knowing a space like "I love this place, let me be curious about what's here. What changed from this point a year ago or yesterday?" It's like you'll never capture everything, but it's this game of just this constant evolution of small moments and marks of beauty or wonder.
Living in the city, especially, I think having a sense of reverence for something is important. You see it in other people, but it's more easily seen for me in nature. So I think the drawing practice is a sort of practice of reverence for the world around me, like I need to be physically in and observing the world somehow, especially as public spaces are disappearing; everyone's on their phone. There’s so much intake, so much overwhelm, and I feel that momentum is reflected in my drawings. How do we show up and be present? How do I be in the world? How do I live a life? Whether that's decorating my apartment or collecting jewelry or cooking or... How do you live a life that's thoughtful and mindful.
DHL: Your work often features urban landscapes where organic and industrial elements intersect. What attracts you to these themes?
SC: When I was younger, I'd always catch in the back of my mom's car the world go by. And this blurry fascination with things coming and going and trying to make out what they are as they move by you. I remember taking the train up to my grandma's upstate, and just above 125th Street, I noticed these vines that looked to be eating the buildings they grew on. The vines, I later learned are Kudzu, which is an invasive species. It came over from Japan, I want to say in the ‘30s. I loved how monstrous and amorphous these forms looked, and it was something I've wanted to capture. I was sketching out the window and I was just loving these forms, so I grabbed this photo and after the trip I grabbed a sketch that I did of that on the way up, and then I did a tighter sketch. And just that, it led a whole body of charcoal works about how we capture fleeting time, and how we continue to build on these forms, thinking about repetition, different paper formations, and that all came out of one sketch for about four months. It was just loose charcoal works, nothing super developed, but just a building of momentum that came out of one little sketch.
DHL: You often utilize multiple points of view in your work. How do you decide which perspectives to incorporate into a piece?
SC: It comes back to this practice of curiosity, I'll make a mark and I'll know that it's not right, but instead of feeling the urge to fix it and make it precise, I'll let it remain imperfect or wrong. At first, when working with charcoal, I’d make the marks too heavy, but then this ghost mark would happen when I would try to wipe it down or fix it. It created a sense of time, this building up and taking down and building back up, but not doing so to such a level of perfection. When you're working outside, there's so much stimuli and everything's changing around you. Sometimes a car will move, the trees blow in the wind, or the sun's gone down. So you just let yourself lean into the mistakes. And I think it's been this process of trusting myself without being too self conscious about what I'm doing. It’s been in incredible practice of vulnerability, especially when drawing in public.
DHL: Can you tell us about your visual diaries? When did you start them, and how have they helped you in your art-making process?
SC: The sketchbook process really started in my BFA year in college. It was more of a means of note-taking and catching stray thoughts or doodling during lectures. In the midst of COVID, and there was a lot of time alone and that's when I really started the practice of going out in the world and sketching on site. There was a body of water that I'd go to often when I was having a rough day and these large rolling hills, like something out of an impressionist painting, and I would take the sketchbook out there after class, and that's where I really started sketching.
Just before I came here to New York, my grandma's friend who's one of the first people not in my family to ever hang my work, told me to start keeping a journal and to write down everything I can remember because of the political moment we were in 2020, me being 20 in 2020, and moving to New York. And she's like, "You're going to want to remember all of this."
But it wasn't until I went to this show in this brownstone that I met an artist who told me his biggest piece of advice for young artists in New York… get a sketchbook and never leave home without it. I found a sketchbook that fit in my favorite purse, and then without really thinking too much about it, I just started. Now when I leave the house, consistently, it's my journal, my sketchbook, my calendar, and maybe whatever book I'm reading, and all those three things have to come with me wherever I go now.
This has been so important not just because it keeps me consistent. I’m typically sketching on my 15, 20 and lunch breaks, or on car rides. So I’ve built this archive of the mundane and in between. But now over 3 years, 21 sketchbooks have been filled and these small moments have amassed and I can see the progress in my drawing abilities and style. So while I've not made many “large, finished” works as I’ve been trying to find my footing after graduation and moving here, I have this practice that I know will feed me into the future.
DHL: In a word, how would you like your work to make others feel?
SC: Vitality. Someone looks at something and you just remember a part of yourself that was maybe sleeping, or just you see the world in a more vivid sense. You're more aware that everything is not so stagnant or sterile or isolated. You see the way everything's blended together. So I think to me, a word that holds that is vitality.
As we watched and recorded her sketching, the team frolicked around the space where charcoal inevitably appeared on clothes. This staining of our clothes was indicative of how inspiring and penetrative her creative spirit is. It is difficult not to interact with her (or any great artist for that matter) and not leave wanting to create yourself. Shannon’s practice is representative of what is bound to emerge from fearlessly leaning into curiosity, seeing her surroundings from the innocent eyes of a child, and reflecting on her peripheral with immediacy. The most inspiring aspect of Shannon (evident in her work) is her element of fluidity, a stark opposite of linearity, which boils down to the roots of art in the first place. Ironically, among works of black and white charcoal drawings — there is an underlying motif of interconnectedness and a reverence for Mother Earth.
As we finished the interview, we gleefully headed up to her roof — on a hot, summer July day where she set up shop to imitate the skyline of Manhattan from a distance with brownstone buildings in view. She’s experimenting with orange. She uses an ornate green tray and a decorative cylindrical box from her grandmother to hold her materials. Radiant vitality, life, a legacy of love, grounding, city, country, heritage, and play all marinate within the artist’s atmosphere, culminating in the promise of a bright future. One can predict that in due time her works will flow effortlessly downstream in increasing quantities in the same majestic way that the East River eventually finds its way back to the Atlantic Ocean.
Check Shannon’s artworks on Eyes On Art, and follow Shannon at @shannoncahalane for the latest whereabouts.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity, while preserving the original meaning and intent of the interviewee's statements. Please note that the editing is tailored for online presentation, enhancing readability and engagement.
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As the son of a tech guru + an artistic educator, Douglas Henry Lewis Jr. spent most of his childhood around computer servers, perusing arts and crafts materials, and amassing large amounts of printer paper. With his consummate and imaginative nature expressing itself rapidly via drawing, reading, and writing since the beginning, it is no surprise that Douglas would eventually find himself within digital media as a multi-hyphenate creative. Having attended a private Christian academy from pre-school to the second grade, Douglas’ familiarity with self-expression via clothing developed early due to a strict uniform of white collared shirts and blue, black, or khaki trousers aside from the occasional “dress out” days.
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