When the freeway was built in Marin county, it cut through the neighborhoods of San Rafael and San Anselmo, creating pockets of culture composed of artistic, aging hippies, affluent young professionals or older, more rural, residents. Shanna was an artist living in one of these pockets in San Anselmo. In the spring of '91, my mother and I went to see some of her work.
The street has a 1950s feel, lined with small clapboard houses sitting on tiny, manicured plots—all except for Shanna's. Her home is a rambling rural oasis, hidden behind overgrown shrubbery and a line of massive acacia and live oaks. A small, rusty wire gate huddles in a hedge, bearing a hand-scrawled sign that says, “Please latch the gate and bungie it. Beware of dogs.” These come running out as we enter: a young, brisk Sheltie-cross with a long, inquisitive nose, and a shaggy, older dog, greying around the muzzle and walking stiffly. His milky eyes peer at us, and he gives a mournful “Yowww” as we approach the house.
Shanna emerges from the house to greet us. Her handshake is firm and dry, but her voice is soft and her manner a little shy, although she has met my mother once before. It's hard for me to determine her age. She has a youthful shape to her face, which is fair, blue-eyed, and devoid of make-up. Her hair is long and thick, with bangs cut across a slender forehead. But there is a lot of grey streaked among its blonde, and her cheeks are lined and rough from being outdoors.
She leads us to her home up a sidewalk speckled with vivid emerald moss and surrounded by dozens of large metal containers filled with dirt. Most of them have small green spears breaking through their soil. A few lilies-of-the-valley are up in one, and a cluster of paper-whites in another; Shanna is an avid grower, if not a gardener. Certainly, I have never seen such masses of English violets in a California yard; they bruise the shadows with their rich, purple color.
The house is light blue and a mix of shapes. Some of it is square, with large dusty windows at yard level; they hang at odd angles. Parts of the house appear to have been tacked on over the years, none too skillfully. The whole place looks as if it would fall over from a single blow. The front porch needs painting and some carpentry on its stairs. It holds more plants, a scarred wooden end table, and a sagging couch covered in dog hair. Mother and I cast surreptitious glances at each other. Shanna has gone in to get her sculptures; we are obviously to stay out here and view them. Shall we sit on the couch and risk the furry web and possibly rich smell of dog? Mother, being more fastidious, decides against it. I brush quickly and hopefully at a small square of couch and perch cautiously on the edge.
The house is dark inside, Shanna explains as she re-emerges, too dark to see her work well. She puts down two large cardboard boxes filled with newspaper. Inside are all her current sculptures, carefully wrapped. The dogs lie comfortably at our feet as we begin the process of revealing her work...
I'm unprepared for the delicacy and warmth of her art. Palm-sized figures of creamy, unglazed porcelain emerge from their sea of paper, mer-animals of every species and pose: laughing pigs with curled legs and hooves; fat, happy cats, sleeping or playing flute; supine elephants, entwining trunks; goats, sheep, hippos in tender pas de-deux—all skillfully carved and lifelike, except for the fact that their nether halves are fish. Each scale is carefully tooled. Tails toss and curl like a sailfish's fin, or lie in rippling serenity.
There are a few people, too: mermaid mothers playing with their babies, or cuddled up with mer-cats and dogs. Merchildren laughing and holding pets. I notice all the women's faces look a little like Shanna.
Soon the couch is a colony of strange and wondrous creatures. I am enchanted, and it's hard to choose between them. Mother decides on a pig and a small cat, licking its fishy tail. I choose a mer-cat that looks like my Duchess—fat, furry and curled on her back in blissful slumber.
Shanna tells us about an upcoming exhibition. She wants to design a display for her creatures, something that resembles a rocky beach but is light and easy to carry. She does not drive, she explains. She has no car. Through these intimations I also understand she has no husband, no lover, no steadfast friend to take her under his wing. She begs rides to the shows. She sallies forth on foot to shop in the nearby stores. In the heart of an affluent, mobile culture, Shanna remains a rural anachronism, contained by her own—what? Fears? Poverty? Artistic sacrifice?
After each piece is laboriously rewrapped, Shanna shows us her kiln. It's in an old barn, cluttered with equipment, hay and the strong smell of chickens. She picks up a mask, an interesting head made of equal parts of bear and crocodile.
“It cracked, you see,” she says. “It was so thick, and I rushed the drying process. It was ruined. I do better with the small pieces.”
She introduces us to her goats, two wall-eyed Nubians kept in a wire yard of hay and hard-packed dirt. There is an old orchard here, and its abundant apples hang on the leafless branches or lie on the ground, copper and bronze with rot. A large ginger-colored cat comes by, ignoring the eager interest of the dogs and allowing me to stroke it briefly. There is a vegetable garden adjacent to the goats, too; it contains some wilting cabbages and thick-stalked onions.
Mother and Shanna talk about the goats, and I wander back to the gate. There are ducks in the front yard now, flapping and quacking by a small pool. The cat follows me and sits beneath a bush.
The overall effect of this aging, chaotic garden and ramshackle house unsettles me. I feel as if I wandered into a fairy tale—Rapunzel perhaps—where (unlike the Disney version) the King, gazing from his castle, is surprised by the wild, magical grounds of his neighbor, the witch. In the original story, he trespasses into those grounds to pick campion for his ailing, pregnant Queen. It is an act of courage, not just because he risks the witch's righteous anger but because he leaves behind his pristine world for something wild and strange. Something that lives by different rules. Something enchanted.
I sense the same enchantment here: the delicate spirit of Shanna, living behind a simple, lonely heart. The whimsical, engaging art hidden in the shadowed, unkempt home. The rural, fecund garden thriving among trim suburban yards. What must her neighbors think, gazing over the wire fence?
What do I think, having braved the grimy porch and walked among the weeds?
I touch my little mer-cat, wrapped in paper, and smile.
