Shannon Tomanovich

Catbox

2011
Sharpie on vinyl, pvc pipe, zippers, thread and two cats
27" x 24" x 24"

Earlier, I traced people on sheets of vinyl. I may have been trying to preserve something. That is a common use of plastic today. It protects food from air, furniture from humans and humans from humans.
The transparency is what attracts me to the material. The ability to see through it and record what is visible. The Catbox was the first time I constructed something specifically for a tracing and in the future I would like to custom build shapes specifically for the subject to be traced. With the cats I tried to figure out what it is about this process that I am so drawn to. I traced the cats multiple times over the course of a couple weeks and I think it lost something in that. It wasn't a rush to save something that was going somewhere else. With people you cannot keep them under plastic for long. It was a rush to compromise how much they are willing to stand being traced. The cats liked it though, they had plenty of air and they liked the attention. The cats movement made for a nice element. In my next vinyl piece I will use a specific human subject in motion.

Old Eyes
2011
Plastic
20" x 45" x 3"

Marcel Proust wrote, "The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes." I seek those eyes as well as new landscapes and this piece was just another failed attempt to find them. I see it as hopefully subtle and beautiful if it is given the chance. My reasons for using the plastic are the same. The transparency and, to some degree, the cheapening of a first-hand experience. I melted and carved images from my sketchbook of people on trains, a black dog's leg, a cat's face, a horizon line, measurements and symbols from maps and navigational instruments. I may revisit this sometime elsewhere.