Artist Story: Shannon Stratton

Shannon Stratton, Greetings, 2003, latex and tinfoil

– Gaston Bachelard

There is a saying: “jack of all trades, master of none;” a saying that has haunted me, since I am that jack. I will openly admit that along with acting as Director of Programming for ThreeWalls, I write, teach and maintain my studio practice. The saying haunts me because I may have chosen to be ‘the master of none’, but I like to think I have chosen a life-long path where each trade is developed over time and contributes to a rich and fulfilling life in the arts. After all, everyone around here is a jack of all trades, whether artist, writer, teacher, parent, administrator, designer, gardener or whatever, part of being apart of this culture is trying, and wearing, many hats, part of the challenge is taking off the ones that don’t fit.

After completing my BFA at the Alberta College of Art and Design, I moved to Chicago to attend the School of the Art Institute and complete an MFA in studio art. While studying for my BFA I had organized exhibitions, volunteered at artist-run centers and acted as an event planner, so while in graduate school, I once again found myself interested in arts administration. I applied to work as a gallery assistant and then manager at the Institute’s graduate Exhibition Studies space, 1926. It was here that I truly realized my commitment to exhibition practice by helping other artists achieve the goals of their projects. Through 1926 and subsequent curatorial undertakings, I found my way as an independent in the arts admin world, collaborating with colleague Duncan Mackenzie on the middlemanagement project, and then later with Jonathan Rhodes, Sonia Yoon and Jeff M. Ward on ThreeWalls. Both of these projects have allowed me to explore my interest in writing and have lead to other invitations to write for artists, exhibitions and publications, an opportunity that has been invaluable as I negotiate a voice for myself both within and outside of this art community.

What has proven the ultimate challenge for me is deciding whether to maintain or abandon my own art practice. After much deliberation and many stops and starts, I concluded that although my practice may have to take a backseat to these other pursuits, there is no reason to bury it. My experiences in administration only enrich my own studio, a site where I can allow myself the same freedom for experimentation that I encourage in ThreeWalls residents. It is the experience of a multitude of commitments in life that enrich our practices and our person. There will be years spent in our studios, maybe years spent buried in research, and others where job, children and health might keep us from making the work we’ve made in the past. An old mentor once told her painting class: it doesn’t matter, it all goes in the soup; if you stop making work for a few years, it doesn’t mean you’ve stopped being an artist.

As the other saying goes: “wherever I go, there I am.”

In a world that peddles wealth and fame as the only gauge of success, it is healthy to step back and take inventory of what one wants out of art. In my life, I made a commitment to the arts early, and when I made that commitment I decided that I wanted to be working in and contributing to that community to the best of my ability and dedicating myself to creative output, whether it be my own or that of my colleagues. Through ThreeWalls and other curatorial and writing projects, I am given the great privilege of working with other artists and helping them see their ideas, experiments and projects through to fruition, give them space, give them voice and give them an audience. ThreeWalls prides itself on the fact that we allow people to succeed or fail, believing that so much of the reward is in the journey. It is true that “wherever I go, there I am,” but in the between I have seen and learned so much, and all of it has gone into the soup. A soup that is still as many parts artist as it is ThreeWalls team member, writer, teacher, reader, partner, daughter, me.

Shannon Stratton was born and raised in Calgary, Alberta, Canada where she attended the Alberta College of Art and Design for my BFA. Shannon received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2003 and where she will complete an MA in Art History Theory and Criticism in 2007. In 2004 Shannon joined Jonathan Rhodes, Jeff M. Ward and Sonia Yoon in founding ThreeWalls. Currently she teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Harrington College of Design and writes exhibition essays, criticism and nonfiction.