"Detritus", May 10-31, 2003, Firehouse Gallery, Wichita, Kansas

Short version: I got cancer. I got better. I got a life.

Longer version: There's nothing like a death sentence to put a different perspective on your life. I'm cruising along and the only thing bad about life, in the bad sort of way where you think you may never actually get the problems (whatever they are) handled, is bills and yardwork and the kids who grew up way too fast (but at least I hear they always do) and I'm creeping up on middle age or rather its creeping up on me but even though 40 sort of came and went, hey I'm young at heart and sort of feel like a 30-something in a 40-something body and there's art to make but I've got to make money and maybe next month will be different where I actually do the important and not the urgent.

Kevin Mullins (r) and Lee at the opening reception at the Firehouse Gallery

Then I got cancer.

I've heard people say they feel like they are on a roller coaster because of this or that thing that is going on in their lives. Well, I've got news for you. Getting cancer is climbing on a really big ass roller coaster. This is a true story: Lajean and I visited Las Vegas for the first time a few years ago and I let my in-laws talk me into going on this giant swing thingy where you climb into a harness with two other people (which in this case were both relatives and so would have had a significant impact, so to speak, on future family get-togethers had we been killed by this flimsy contraption) and you get pulled up to, seriously, something like 14 stories high and then one of the three, me, in this case has to pull the damn release. But before you do, you are just hanging there in space, where the only thing separating you from the ground is a fabric harness and 14 stories of air and your life is flashing before you, or at least high school physics is flashing back where the concept of freefall acceleration at 31 feet per second per second, not to mention the term "terminal velocity", is having some real significance. Now imagine one of those dreams where you are freefalling and you wake up right before you hit the ground. In this real life wide awake version I pull the cord and freefall for what seems like 13 and a half stories then the cables get tight and we swing through the low point of the parabola (since high school algebra is flashing by as well) then go back up in the air and freefall all over again. And again and again. The whole ride lasts maybe a minute, going on a lifetime. Well, this utterly terrifying trip will put the worlds biggest rollercoaster in its place.

And cancer was a wilder ride than all of that.

Now ultimately, believe it or not, I felt like I had won the lottery. After the initial 13 and a half story freefall, which lasted a few weeks, I came to realize that having been fortunate enough to get testicular cancer, and even more fortunate to get the most treatable kind, I was looking at something like a 98% cure rate. The freefall was over. Surgery and radiation were not the piece of cake I had hoped for, but at least I had a pretty solid feeling I was more likely to die from a pit bull attack than the cancer.

It's been two years now since I finished radiation treatment and my body will never be what it was. The Lee Shiney Gallery was one of the casualties of fatigue and my endrocrinological train wreck. But I'm getting back to a point where I feel like I'm actually functioning again.

Which brings us back to doing the important, rather than the urgent.

It was finally time to get serious about building some art. This show is the result of finally taking that process to heart. It's about staring mortality in the face (and hitting 50 in the process) and finally moving beyond it. It's about saying "to hell with worrying about making money" and finally doing something risky. It's finally letting the demons out. Finally. Finally.

Why "Detritus"? All materials used are discards, duh. Scrap lumber is easy enough to find, but even the paint was returned to Lowe's and Home Depot by someone who I'll never know. Somehow it seemed fitting to use color that someone nitpicked over, then returned to the store because it wasn't "perfect". You can pull whatever metaphor out of that you like. I'm engaged in a process that makes me feel better, and my wife likes the art. Hey, I don't need any more than that...

Lee Shiney -- 4/17/03

[ a r t i s t   s t a t e m e n t   f r o m   D e t r i t u s    s h o w    -  M a y   2 0 0 3 ]

You go with what you know. I'll accept the fact that some artists are constantly spewing forth images like they are locked in time as a child where the creativity hasn't been stifled, yet. Or musicians where melody churns in their brains constantly. Well, somehow I manage to visualize convection currents and pressure differentials instead. Science always intrigued me more than dead artists. A simplistic description would be that I’m shaped by a mix of Mark Rothko and Kenneth Noland and Kenneth Snelson. My contribution is something like physics or fluid dynamics turned into visual stuff.

It was also For-God’s-sake-build-something-and-get-it-out-there. It was a challenge to myself to do it on a near-zero budget and transmogrifying someone else’s cast-offs into something that is hopefully kicked a couple notches back up the food chain.

It sounds trite, but this really was very much “about the process”. I was encouraged by some well-meaning folks to bring to this show part of the contraptions I built to make these pieces, but that just seemed too much like turning a show into a sideshow (so instead, hound Dustin Parker to do another Progression show and I’ll show up if asked).