Recently, Via Affirmativa was able to interview Shannon and Darin White. Shannon spends much of her time painting while Darin is working as a printmaker and as a sculptor. After meeting in second grade they have grown together to learn how to make a living doing what they love as artists. Below is a glimpse into their Kansas life and a joint venture that they call, BALM.

VAF: Is artwork something you two can do together or do you get in each others’ way?

Darin: That’s a good way of putting it. Yeah, I think we can.

Shannon: We kind of play off of each other.

Darin: We work with some of the same ideas but we approach them in different ways.

VAF: Shannon, I read somewhere that if you were to be an animal you would be a humble peacock.

Shannon: You have done some research. It used to be as if I was a peacock, so to speak, with my tail feathers closed. But I was reading about being a “display for God’s splendor.” This was very meaningful to me as an artist who had not been active in the arts for a few years. I studied the passage and the peacock and found these attributes to be applicable—it was a great natural symbol. It was a turning point for me in the process of re-becoming an artist to realize that my art has a spiritual purpose.

VAF: Both of you are involved in something called, “BALM.” What is BALM?

Darin: It stands for Beauty, Art and Life Movement. We are about connecting artists, healing relationships, creativity, truth and beauty—artists of any type: visual, musicians, poets, writers, film, dance, installation, print makers, sculptors, painters and the like. We usually get together for an evening around a theme that we have chosen.

VAF: Where do the people that you invite come from?

Shannon: Geographically, Kansas City and Lawrence. But because we are involved in the art community we meet a lot of people from all over.

VAF: What is it that connects everyone who is a part of BALM?

Darin: Many artists share the same creative drive and we are getting together based off of that. We are encouraging each other in that, we are focusing on that and it just naturally produces connections and relations and all sorts of things that are conducive to encouraging creative people.

Shannon: One person after our last gathering said that the group fulfills a deep need in artists to get together to connect and share over creativity. I think it fulfills a deep need in the artist community as a whole.

VAF: You mentioned healing relationships, beauty, and connecting artists. How are all of those things related in what you do?

Darin: If you just talk about art and don’t do it that doesn’t do much good. If you just talked about writing and never wrote you wouldn’t be much of a writer. We are encouraging each other. We need affirmation.

If you affirm somebody in what they are working on not only by saying, “yeah, you are doing a great job,” but also, “hey, what do you think about working on this…” You know the whole idea of the critique. It’s not necessarily a critique every time we get together, but if somebody is looking for that then it can be extremely helpful. And what it does is get somebody generated. They are excited about what they are doing again. So I think it is kind of a snow ball affect. If you are affirmed then you want to go work more and do more.

VAF: Do you find that the concept of BALM is a little bit self-serving as well—that it is meeting that need in your own life?

Shannon: Oh, sure. I think we went into it thinking that this might be kind of fun. We enjoy the gatherings just as much as anyone else does.

Darin: I think that as an artist, if you don’t show your work, if no one sees what you are doing…I mean that is just built in as an artist that you want people to see what you are doing and those talents that you have. It always jazzes people to show what they are doing. So I think that, yeah, it feeds into what we want to do too. That is built into us.

Shannon: We have a display company and we know that if you don’t put something on display it is not as likely to be appreciated, to be purchased. It is just going to sit away somewhere just like the paintings in our garage last week that we haven’t gotten out for years and we ended up sending to a gallery. These have been sitting in our garage for how long? That concept of showing your work is very important…and showcasing each others work.

VAF: Have you heard of the concept of VAF Art Slams?

Darin: Yeah, I really like that idea…we want to host one.

VAF: What you are doing already seems like a good description of what an Art Slam could be.

Darin: Yeah, I think ours would be a description of a general Art Slam rather than a specific niche like fine arts or printmaking or whatever. I love that concept.

VAF: What are some of the things you think about doing in the future with BALM?

Darin: It is on about a month or month and a half basis that we try to do something. A main underlying thing will be that we have a new theme each time.

Shannon: We try to stay out of the way. We provide just a little leadership. We want to go deeper than just shallow conversation and really deal with issues that come up—like relationships and beauty.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 12th, 2007 at 7:13 am and is filed under Interviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.