Handle With Care: Work by Shawn Zeiger
Less than three. <3. Heart. Love. Iconic. Cliche? Not when it comes to Shawn Zeiger’s show at The Firm in Georgetown in South Seattle. Shawn has taken the heart and shown us a multitude of ways to feel. Drugged, velvety, crushed, broken, wrapped, confined, protective, lost, found, tempted and adored. I saw the work yesterday, a week after the opening. Running into Steve Withycombe at All City Coffee gave me a chance to visit the show. Iconic, solid, fluid, stunning, the hearts told all sorts of stories. All but one are titled with a date from what each experience means for Shawn. I wondered about the experiences, but enjoyed relating to them without knowing. I took a few photographs and soon left for an integrated massage, as I have been having lower back problems for the last six weeks. During my treatment, the subject of the metaphorical heart came up, about letting go, holding on, what’s important, what’s necessary, other grand notions of being human and a variety of losses and gains life has in store. I shared the photographs with my practitioner, she too was in awe. Today, I received a text from my Dad that my Grandfather was in the hospital. Thinking of him, he’s 91, I get nervous, those dreadful thoughts, I haven’t visited enough, I forgot to Skype him this week, what if…? Immediately I called Dad and asked to talk to Grandpa. He said it might be heart failure, but they won’t know until tomorrow. So now I wait. Heart failure seems so out of our control, it is, and when one has lived for over 90 years is there an acquiescing in the end? I don’t think so. I want to believe it’s not the end, my heart isn’t ready for this sort of failure. This type seems different than lost or broken love, different in that I wonder as humans if we make choices in our relationships, for when they start and end. But maybe we don’t, perhaps I could learn something from Shawn’s hearts, the love for my Grandfather, and from his real heart. Such a mystery how it pumps blood to live, such a mystery how it falls, flails, and fearlessly engages in the act of loving and letting go.
works by Shawn Zeiger
Come and see the work by appointment through The Firm or Z-one-05. Steve Withycombe, Trey Jones and Chris McMullen co-own The Firm with Michele McMullen as curator. It runs through March with a second opening during the next Art Attack in Georgetown, March 12th, 2011.