shannon reece
Shannon studied Fine Art at Vancouver Community College, Langara Campus in 1973. The two year program was completed in her home town, Kelowna, B.C. she was one of the five first graduates of the new Okanagan College-fine arts program. After returning to Vancouver and working at Maxwell & Art Store, she was accepted into the Vancouver School of Art in the downtown core. By the third year, and graduation, the school had changed names.
After returning to Vancouver she worked at Maxwell’s art store right around the corner from The Vancouver School of Art, which she eventually enrolled in and spent 3 years studying print making. Right after graduating with a general art certificate, she moved to Toronto Canada in 1980 to focus on copy machine imagery, taking a workshop with George Whiteside. While there she also worked at Curry’s art supply store for the year. Once again she returned to Vancouver and signed up to work as a deckhand on a 32 ft Salmon boat and worked in the Pacific Salmon fisheries for the next two years. During this time, she was exhibiting her oil pastel works in various locations and galleries in Vancouver. In 1992 she enrolled in the Master of Arts program through Open Learning University affiliated with ECCA. After obtaining her Masters, she moved to San Miguel de Allende to study photography with Jo Brenzo who taught at the Bellas Artes. Shannon later became Jo’s darkroom assistant and in 2001 she herself became a teacher of photography for a Summer Camp program called Mexart. Since then she has maintained her own darkroom and still gives classes in classical photography. The darkroom now has 6 enlargers and there are over 10- 35mm cameras to lend to students. She is still living her dream.
Shannon also shows every year with an international group out of Mexico City called Caleidoscopio, which is a theme-based exhibit at the UNAM in Cd. Nezahualcoyotl, which later travels to Havana, Cuba. This year will be the 20th anniversary of this group. She has been with them 19 years.
