Catching up with Shannon Cole

Kyra from Ideas Test suggests I talk to Shannon, an artist living in Queenborough who’s also been a key volunteer on Ideas Test projects. So I send an email and we jump on a zoom together. This is a screenshot of us towards the end of our conversation. Shannon looks fresh and I look like a very happy penguin. I was very happy to speak to Shannon. Her creative energy was infectious. 

Lockdown for Shannon has been interesting - she's managed to stay connected, continue working with Ideas Test and amass over 2000 followers on her Tik Tok channel. She talked me through just some of the ins and outs of Tik Tok from ways to earn money to it not just being about dancing to the unfortunate fact that some people hate on each other. This kind of thing doesn’t get Shannon down but she can see how it affects others. This ability to empathise makes her a great person to have on board for projects like Snack and Chat - a monthly online meet up for young people to share experiences and make new friends - run by Ideas Test. 

Like me, her artistic life is combined with her volunteering roles with people - Shannon told me about the artworks she's made including a huge canvas that hangs in the Sheppey Matters building, where she also used to volunteer pre-Covid with youth clubs, groups for young people with special needs and dementia coffee mornings. We both know the place for the best chats at these mornings is serving the teas and coffees!

Shannon helped to paint the mural on the Sheppey FM building in Sheerness and is currently interested in photography - she's kindly sent me some of the photographs she's recently taken, along with a photo of the mural and other paintings she's made, check them out below.

We talked about the other artistic adventures that Shannon has had outside of Sheppey including taking part in the Whitstable Biennale and Tate Exchange at Tate Modern as part of Stuff Happens Here, where she got to work with different artists including one that showed her how to make a print using an octopus!

Back to Sheppey: Shannon says that people there have a calm pace, they dawdle and take their time over everything. And again people really do know each other, in Sheerness at least, Shannon will bump into people she knows including her old teachers. Shannon’s moved to Queenborough now and gave me some top tips for eating out including The Flying Dutchman, Bosun’s and The Old House at Home. 

And then we talk about Moomop. No one knows who Moomop is. During lockdown, paintings of a mouse appeared all around town. People started to photograph them and put them on Facebook. Once, on a late night lockdown walk Shannon was one of the first to find a painting of the mouse on a pumpkin (it was Halloween) on the clocktower. Unfortunately someone took the pumpkin soon after. Shannon says these paintings added character to the town. They were for kids but they were interesting, you could see them on Facebook and then go find them for yourself. 

When I ask Shannon about what it's like as an artist in Queenborough, she says it's a nice place to be an artist. She feels like part of a community as art is all around. She shows me a pebble she has from Sheppey Rocks - people who paint rocks for others to find with instructions on to re-hide, keep or add on Facebook. When Shannon sees a sunset she’ll take a photo and add it to the Facebook group Positive Life on Sheppey. Facebook is proving a great way for me to see what’s going on in Sheppey, which is making me see it (Facebook, not Sheppey) in a different light.

Right outside Shannon’s front door there's another door, tiny door propped up against the wall. It's a fairy door, one of many you can find in Queenborough. If you go out for a walk you can come across them and they give you a lift in a way, like a jolt to get out of your head and think differently, creatively, magically. 

This reminds me of something Graham the postman said about meeting people on his daily round and snapping out of whatever's going on in his head. It's this reminder of being part of something bigger than yourself. Guess who Shannon's old postman was before she moved? It was Graham of course! Check out our conversation in a previous blog post.  

I think I’ve caught the bug from Shannon and am really looking forward to spotting fairy doors around Queenborough, especially the one that I’ve heard is next to the station on a tree...

Thanks again to Shannon!