Artist finds inspiration, vitality from 1860s home

Shannon Alig grew up in the South, steeped in a traditional southern aesthetic. She is a classicist, perceiving beauty in formality, balance, timelessness and linearity -- characteristics manifested in antebellum homes of southern Louisiana.

In her region of the country, homes had names. When she and her husband, Eric, discussed moving to the Peoria, Ill., area, she saw a home on the Internet with a name and hints of classical southern balance and formality.

Viewing the house in person instantly convinced the couple it was their new home.

The Tobias House, 114 E. Holland St., Washington, Ill., is an 1860s Victorian Gothic Revival rumored to have been part of the underground railroad.

For Eric Alig, moving to central Illinois was moving back home. His family farms outside of Washington, and he attended Bradley University. He's an electrical engineer and moved back after accepting a job with

Caterpillar Inc.

"This was moving back to Eric's roots, but it was moving back to my roots in a way, too," said Shannon Alig, an expressionist-representational painter.

"This home inspires my art. We don't want to change this house. We want to be part of the history of this house, not start its history over. I want my children to grow up in an old house that speaks of tradition and culture."

Her children, Osric, 3 1/2, and Sabine, 9 months, are not barred from any room in the house. They walk or crawl by antiques and play with trains on hardwood floors. The family can walk to the grocery store and restaurants on the town square.

"We enjoy having breakfast on Saturday on the front porch and waving to everyone," Shannon Alig said.

She graduated from the University of Central Arkansas and studied a year at the University of Teesside in England and at Saint-Etienne, France. She has worked in lighting design at an architectural firm and is still

working on paintings commissioned from clients in Portland.

"I have a passion for lighting. It's a fine balance between an art and a science," she said.

One of her pieces, a three-panel, chinoiserie-style painting of a red dogwood, hangs on a second floor landing, illuminated with directional track lighting.

Another piece in the upstairs hallway is illuminated with a framing projector-style light fixture. The aperture can be adjusted so only the painting inside the frame is illuminated.

Shannon Alig was often recruited when a Portland gallery sold a painting to a client who loved the art hanging on the gallery wall only to fall out of love when the painting was hung at home. She designed lighting that

rekindled the love.

Southern homes have narratives woven around family antiques, paintings and prints, she said. She pointed to portraits she painted of her own children done in an old style. The paintings hang on the staircase wall.

"They could be portraits left by previous owners of the children who first lived in this house," she said. "The portraits of my children appear integrated into the history of the home."

A series of prints Shannon Alig purchased in France hangs on a bathroom wall. She said a person could walk into any room of her house and discern her narrative and perceive what's important to her.

Every room of the house except the master bedroom has paintings.

"I don't want art in my bedroom. It's too stimulating. I need to get away from my work," she said.

Shannon Alig has blended antiques like a 200-year-old Chinese altar style tea table, Chinese day bed and Chinese noodle cabinet with reproductions of late-Georgian period dining room chairs and classic modern designs like an Eero Saarinen tulip chair, Wassily chair by Marcel Breuer and Eileen Gray side table.

In her kitchen, she has a French art deco piece she ordered from a European antiques distributor on eBay. She has a still life painting on the kitchen wall that echoes a real one on the kitchen countertop.

Shannon Alig has worked as an interior designer, though her painting predates design work.

"Art is not viewed in a vacuum. The room beyond the edge of the canvas cannot be closed off. The experience of a painting is shaped by the frame, the wall, the room, objects in the room. The whole experience of a painting is also an interaction with its surroundings," she said.

Coming from her southern tradition of home narratives and distinct personalities, Shannon Alig is especially taken by the Tobias house history and legend. The home burned in 1899 and was rebuilt. In 1911, tradition holds, the family living in the home disappeared, leaving half-eaten bowls of cereal and open jugs of milk on the table. All of their personal items remained in the house.

People speculate that a now-sealed tunnel, once part of the underground railroad, was either the family's escape route or the scene of their kidnapping.

A previous owner closed off the tunnel, but the legend of the underground railroad serves as a counterpoint to the history of the South for Shannon Alig.

She is struck by the previous owners of the home who all return to visit the house and savor anew its charm.

The home's pervasive sense of hospitality, southern elegance, big front porch, high ceilings, fireplaces and formal dining room are all characteristics that welcome people back.

"It's like coming home to visit someone. The house has a personality," she said. "This house and its personality have changed me. My children have changed me. I have a whole new appreciation of Mary Cassatt."

Journal Star writer Clare Howard can be reached at 686-3250 or choward@pjstar.com.