Peter Shaughnessy

We have all listened to a beautiful song, read an inspiring poem or stood in an alpine meadow and felt the music, words, and scenery wash over us, mixing our emotions and thoughts into a swirling ill-defined cluster. We feel the goose bumps, shake our heads in awe. Imagine that you accumulate these feelings, emotions and thoughts. Push all of them into a tight ball and then ... force it out into a wooden object. This cannot really happen ... or can it?

For each of us the results would be unpredictable but could appear a bit like one of my boxes. The results may be seen as places to store our feelings, display our feelings, remind us of our feelings. They may provide us with a means to deliver our feelings to other people... other places. Or they could be seen as an expression from the artist and appreciated as nothing more and nothing less.

What would we store in these boxes? I hope we steer clear of paper clips, pencils and rubber bands. Something that has special meaning to us or reminds us of feelings and memories would be appropriate.

It is difficult to explain my boxes with words; they should be experienced by looking and touching. Each viewer might find something quite different. I hope it is so!

I was born in Arlington County, Virginia and immigrated to Canada in 1971 landing in Vancouver, BC. I attended Simon Fraser University for three years completing a Biochemistry major. After university, I acquired a boat-building apprenticeship and spent 10 years in that industry. I am now married to Roma and we have two children, Brenda and Patrick. We moved to the Chilcotin in 1988.

Artist’s Statement

Artist’s Works