So Sean, you are a painter, a school counselor, a jazz musician and a children's book author. Can you tell me how it feels to regularly transition between them all?
Nobody has ever asked me that question before. In the morning, I wake up and run scales, do court studies, and jam. After that, I turn the metronome on and practice. Then I get a cup of coffee and before I got to work. I find my day job to be a very creative act. To be able to engage groups of kids and get them to listen to you, to connect with other people. I find connecting to people to be a creative act as well, it's all the same energy.
After that I get home, hug the kids, pet the dog, have fun with my wife, goof around, feed the kids and then I end up writing, drawing and painting. In a Buddhist sense, it's all the same energy extending from the same internal well. I don't see my work as separate acts, otherwise it would drive me completely nuts. Education can be stiff, formal and conservative. I'll be in a meeting where people are discussing cases and kids, and my head is roaring with music and energy, squares and circles of color, all interacting. The someone will ask me a question and I'll pop out of it, answer/respond and pop right back in. I get bored to death of the meetings, but I'm thinking about color revolving in my head and I can do that comfortably. I guess that Ive gotten used to it, maybe I have ADD which helps balance the two.
When is your children's book, Vito The Barber, officially on the shoves?
The book came out in early January. It hit Amazon.com and Barnes&Nobles.com right away, then a few weeks later its was on Border's shelves in the Boulevard Mall, Victor and Henrietta, NY. I am also doing new author nights in March at the Barnes & Nobles on Transit Road.
Approximately what age is the target audience?
The reading level is fifth and sixth grade though it has been read to fourth grade classrooms. One of the things that the teachers noted is, because it is such a bizarre story, the gifted kids in fourth grade get it. but the rest tune out because there is a lot of dialog, a lot of words. But I didn't want to dumb it down.
In the Forties and Fifties, there was a series of books that came out called, Freddie The Pig, and they were wonderful. Freddie the Pig was the shit man, because, he was this pig that got into all these adventures within a chapter book that wasn't dumbed down. There were all these illustrations that weren't overly done, but very simple pen and ink drawings. I read all of those books. The Vito the Pig series are loosely based on that, in the sense that I tried to craft it well.
Often, dumbing down literature for kids has a negative effect, You are no longer challenging them.
I think what people end up doing in situations like that, is they underestimate the natural intelligence and intuitiveness of kids. And they fail to tap into that creatively. I think sometimes the people that work the best with children are the people who understand that.
Can you give me a short summary of what it is about?
This pig from outer space has the ability to travel all over the universe and warps time. What is two minutes on his planet, could be three months here on Earth or a year somewhere else. But because he has these powers, he can tell when something terrible is happening anywhere in the universe. He gets this message called "The Calling". In this story, these evil land developers want to demolish this bakery to build a super mall. Vito comes to Earth to help the kindly old couple that owns the bakery, by placing a magic spell on the bread oven which causes the bread to come out formed like celebrities. He knows that the money the couple makes from this will be spent on good things, and so he feels good about helping them out. The couple ends up getting rich as a result of selling the bread-heads and they put the money back into the community by building a library that is open 24 hours and also a playground.
What inspires your characters?
I don't know. Ever since I was four or five years old, I've been coming up with these characters. It was probably, again, a free associative idea that I didn't want to strain and mold with my adult consciousness. Kids don't edit what they say or do and so there is, I think, a childlike spontaneity in those characters; the Purple Bacon and the giant Space Worm with a pompadour hairdo. If I had thought someone is going to think I'm weird or that's way too strange to put into a children's book, I don't think it would have caught anyone's eye or gotten published.
Did you write the book yourself or did you have a ghost writer?
I wrote it myself. I've always enjoyed the process of writing and the process of editing. I wrote a book about ten years ago when my daughter was a blob running about the house and I think I made three edits on that one before I tucked it away in a drawer. I still have it and I'll probably finish it someday.
So, because your paintings can be thought of as unabashed, do you think that people will have a difficult time accepting that your children's book is safe reading, which it is?
That is an excellent question. I've already run into some wrinkly noses and kneaded eyebrows and been asked, "you - children's books?" But I think that those people forget that I've spent twenty years in a successful day gig. I am a well respected school counselor and have worked with the toughest kids that you could imagine. But some people out there are so afraid of life and so afraid of experience that they've lived in a narrow stream. Personally, I don't want to do that, not as an artist, a musician or as a person either. But existentially, stepping out of that box is scary for some people. People forget that artists like Shell Silverstein started out working for Playboy doing the spot illustrations and a lot of other very adult oriented stories outside of Playboy as well. He was a person living the full spectrum.
Technically proficient artists, are technically proficient regardless of the subject matter.
Sure. But still, I had to clean up my site because my editor said that he had other well written children's books coming in and wanted to send work my way. Then we realized how turned off people would be by my other artwork. Do I feel like a sellout? A little bit. But what am I selling out for? Children's books. I can live with that.
As far as painting goes, can you take me on a short walk through the process? From brainstorm to finished work?
The ideas come to me driving in the car. And, I am choosing my words carefully, the beautiful thing about it, is that the ideas come and you get turned on by them, worked up about them. You turn them around in your head to look at them from different angles, so that you can figure out how to pull it off. But then, thought meets form. You are actually there, sketching it, then painting it and it never turns out exactly the way that you imagined it, never. The idea hits reality and then it comes out a little different. The sketches I do either in pencil or I ink them out. If the idea ends up being a painting, I draw right on the canvas and then paint using many many layers. I still use the technique of the old masters, thin veils of paint to build it up slowly. The only problem is, once you get into it, you can't back out. A lot of times, I go back to a painting that I am no longer invested in, and then I have to get re-turned on halfway through because all of a sudden I am hit with ideas for 5 more. You are constantly battling your own psyche.
You currently have work hanging in Mark Madden's gallery. The opening reception was certainly one full of street cutlure. How do you feel about being involved in that scene as opposed to the more clean cut galleries around town?
A lot of the "clean cut" galleries wouldn't look at me twice. It's been a battle that I've had all along - the snobbery that goes along with the "clean cut" galleries. Mark Madden was thrilled to have me involved and I was thrilled to show there. I'd rather not make any money at what I'm doing and turn on people who understand what I'm trying to do, then dealing with a bunch of cheese eating, wine sipping, Birkenstock wearing, artistic wannabes that are only hitching their wagons to the people that are really doing the work and be pretentious about it. I have no time for those people at all. I've dealt with years of snobbery from those people and if they just stayed home it would be alright, but they don't. They write these piffy annoying articles in the Buffalo Evening News and the Democrat & Chronicle. You know what? You go out and you paint, hang your psyche out there for people to see, or shut up.
When it comes to pricing the work, any advice for young artists?
One of the first things I do is get a high resolution photograph of whatever I'm painting, because the bottom line, is that I might have to sell it for less than its worth. Most of the time I am forced to sell it for less than its worth. If I have a really good copy of that image, I can resell it over and over again. The clowns, I've sold a lot. The orange woman vacuuming up people off the sidewalk, thats an image thats been in a Hollywood movie and I've sold numerous times. But I have a few paintings that I will not barter with.
Do you still play jazz often? What instrument? With a band? Ever play locally?
I play constantly, although my chops are a little rusty this month because I've had so much action on this book. But, I've studied music very seriously and was in a jazz trio called X Planet Id that broke up when our bass player moved back to Chicago to finish his doctorate degree. The first time we played together, we went into this real smelly bar in Rochester and they called us to the stage with a live mic. Me and the drummer and the bass player just looked at each other, and I said, "Let's just play something D minor."
Twenty-seven minutes later we just tore the place to pieces, destroyed it, ripped it apart. We stopped playing and heard, "Holy shit", "What was that" and "oh my gosh!" All three of us had extensive experience playing in improvisatory jazz bands and so we were used to picking up on chord voicing and keys, thats our training. I play seven string jazz guitar, but I am more interested in the out there stuff.
Do you dabble in any other mediums?
I do some sculpture, clay, and again, it comes out looking real strange. Up in Rochester, I studied portrait sculpting and found out that I hated it because it was too planned and I wanted to be spontaneous. So the portraits that I'd do would have three eyes, six ears and lumps all over their heads. They looked more like space monsters than anything else, but I found more joy in that.
Do you think its possible to survive artistically in the area?
I think it's tough, real tough. I think if you're going to be a creative person, strictly speaking from an artists viewpoint, you have to almost send a lot of your stuff out or have a lot of shows in other places.
Lightning round!
Mighty Taco or Louie's Red Hots
Mighty Taco. When Mighty taco first opened in 1975, you could buy a joint for a quarter. My friends and I walk into the Mighty over there by Hertel Avenue and order a taco with extra hot sauce. We'd put a quarter on the counter, all these hippies worked there, and we'd get a joint. Then we would go in the back...
