Shannon Vargas uses her self-taught artistic skills to cope with life’s challenges.
“Since I was a little girl, I’ve always seen things differently,” she said. “By the time I started creating art, it was already a passion of mine.”
Vargas paints and creates videos that express how she feels or views the world, “which is not really how it should be.” She paints in the genre of abstract expressionism.
“I take real things or scenery and make them abstract,” she said. “I like taking something and putting my vision into it.”
The 45-year-old Greenwood woman, who is the mother of four sons, started pouring her emotions into painting six years ago when her father and her best friend died.
“They died 11 weeks apart,” she said, “both due to cancer. That’s when I really started delving into art. It helped my grieving.”
Her father, Earl Trotter, fought the disease for two years before his death at the age of 87. Vargas’ best friend, Beverly Allen, also suddenly became ill and died of cancer after five weeks.
“It was so unexpected,” Vargas said Allen’s death. “I had to bury her prior to burying my father. She was like a sister to me. She was supposed to be there to help me, to hold my hand.”
Grief, combined with the need to escape and a love of creativity, turned her to art as a means of therapy and self-expression.
“Grief can turn you in different directions,” she said. “For it to turn to something positive is a blessing.”
Though she sometimes uses oil paint, she prefers using acrylic. “I started painting panoramic sceneries on canvas,” she said. “I never studied. I have family members who’ve done drawing and pencil sketching. I tried pencil as a child. I figured I would never have the gift, but I just didn’t find it in the pencil. It was always there in the paint brush.”
She found inspiration in a nephew with whom she grew up in Greenwood, Jeffrey Hodges, who has become an artist and art teacher based in Jackson.
“He is a very talented young man,” she said, “so art is in the blood of this family a little bit.”
Vargas can “see things in things,” she said. “I can find an image, and once it’s locked in, I can paint it. I can have you seeing the exact thing I see.”
She said she loves exploring light and dark contrasts where the light and the shadows fall.
Vargas was pleased to have a local physician purchase the first painting she finished, a large piece titled “The Eye of the Empath.”
“It is a rendition of the all-seeing eye,” she explained. “It was the first big painting that I completed and showed to anyone. When you are the artist, you enjoy what you are doing, but I never thought anyone would appreciate it enough to buy it.”
She said she knew the painting was finished when she sat down to look at it and felt the emotions coming through. “With art, you can just keep going,” she said, “but I knew that it was finished.”
Vargas also creates videos that express her emotions. “That all started from the fact that everything in life that I see has poetry, music, a purpose in it,” she said.
She typically chooses songs by her favorite artists that are “very relatable to my life.” She finds the right locations for her videos and does her own choreography. The videos correlate with her feelings.
“I do everything by myself,” she said, “and then I stitch all the footage together, piece by piece. It’s extremely motivational to me.”
Her videos are available for viewing under her name at IGTV or Facebook.
“I have way too many ideas,” she laughed.
Her video work allows her to explore the idea of finding balance in life. “You can’t shut out the pain in life, and you can’t shut your joy out,” she said. “You have to allow everything in. You can have a combination of all of that.”
Vargas works on her art in a home studio and is also working to develop a website to display her work. “Once I get that arranged, I would like to call it ‘Mind’s Own Art,’” she said. “My goal is to sell more of my art. I think that’s every artist’s dream because you always wonder if your work will ever sell.”
She said she gives her all to her goals.
“I never quit, and I never give up,” she said. “You have to keep pushing to achieve because it’s more than possible. You have to keep going. We don’t have to stay in a world of control and depression. It’s hard, but you can make the choice to step out.”
Vargas said she keeps going despite any setbacks. “You are going to doubt yourself; you are going to have frustrations,” she said. “Whether your pursuit is dance, art, music, or some other type of career, you have to keep pushing. You’ll have far fewer regrets later in life.”
She said her art stems from who she is as a person. “My children would say that I am creative. That is the right description for me — something out of nothing.”
Her four sons are River, 25; Tylon, 17; Elijah, 14; and Samuel, who is 8.
- Contact Dan Marsh at 662-581-7235 or dmarsh@gwcommonwealth.com.
