With wonder and happenstance, seth finds himself immersed in a world of art. He moved to Thomas, West Virginia from a small town in the corn-fields of south-central Michigan sixteen years ago because a friend had lined up a job and he wanted to travel. Since then, he has become a coffee shop employee, a member of a collectively owned studio and gallery space called The White Room, the owner of his own gallery ‘creature,’ and a member of the Thomas City Council.
Though seth has recently stepped down from Thomas City Council, he is optimistic about his replacements and the future of his county. The experience taught him much about stewardship and care for a community, though, in keeping with seth’s theme, he came upon the role through happenstance—
“I just walked in one day to ask the mayor a question, can’t even remember what it was but it was something art related, and he said that a seat was open and that it needed filled, they needed to appoint someone, so I stepped up at that point. And I was just really quiet for the first year, just kind of listening and figuring out how stuff worked. Lots and lots of questions. “
His perspective on the town is remarkably hopeful, especially after serving on its board. He says that decisions for the town are primarily made on the basis of what is good for the community, not what is prioritized through partisan politics. Beyond city government, he says that his community has come together in a number of ways to support those in need through fundraising drives and financial aid. The town has come together in an effort to understand and act on their social responsibility. And more recently, especially since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses and individual artists have started to do the same in more official capacities—reserving a portion of their platform and earnings for community organizations and social justice movements.
“I’m really interested in this idea of commerce not existing in a vacuum outside of social change and social responsibility. But if you’re an economic driver in any way then you should be helping to make the world a better place or redistribute funds or whatever.”
It was happenstance, again, that led seth to becoming an artist, making him the economic driver that he is. While still living in Michigan he was working at a mall kiosk to pay his bills. Given that the mall kiosk environment wasn’t ideal for writing poetry, seth’s first creative love, he found himself inspired to make drawings, accompanied by a bit of text to set the scene. A story, a phrase, or an invented aphorism frame seth’s small, whimsical figures with a certain familiar longing to be understood, or to understand, or, sometimes, to celebrate the not knowing. Without aiming to, just following his intuition and what he found clever or charming, or what gave him hope or reminded him of the wonder of this life, he kept pursuing the “success” of simplicity. After investing several years in his practice, he was surprised to even be recognized as an artist, and certainly to think of himself as one.
“I can’t remember, maybe three years after I started drawing I just was like “oh I guess I’m actually making art.” For a while people would be like “oh what do you do?” And I’m like “I draw a lot.” And they're like “you’re an artist.” and I was like “no, no, no, I’m not an artist.” You know, I so didn’t want to be an artist and then eventually it became kind of absurd where I was like I have stacks and stacks of pictures and I spend my time doing it.”
seth has a few series, many of which use simple imagery to address complex universal life experiences: Creatures of the Heart, Notes from the Afterlife, and more. Creatures of the Heart, the original series, is a group of drawings of mostly stick figures engaging with the complexities and challenges of experiencing emotions. He says that most people think it’s about love, but really it’s about what we hold and care for most dearly and deeply, a distinct notion and feeling, though it is often translated as “love.” Notes From the Afterlife featured a fictional eighth grader giving an oral report on his summer vacation to the afterlife.
“It was kind of about the absurdity of us considering that we have ideas about things that are unknown. Like things that are unknown they just really are unknown and then we create stories to explain them and then we just live by those things, and it’s a really bizarre practice of ours. And so that one’s about that.”
Though seth recognizes that his work often circles similar and related themes, he approaches each of his projects in distinct ways—following an initial spark of inspiration through to its unique process and to its unique conclusion. Often he doesn’t consider the meaning of his work in language or themes until he writes an artist statement, leaving it up to the work to inform his description—it’s all happenstance.
“I think one story I’m trying to tell over and over is that we are in a very strange phenomenon of being alive. It’s just so staggering when you think about what is going on and when you look at the vastness of the universe and don’t see anything that is walking around writing poetry or swearing at people in traffic. It’s just very odd, this world that we’ve stumbled into. I find it mostly glorious regardless of all the hardship and the darkness that is also there, which I also like to talk about, but I feel like most people in the world, regardless of where they stand when you get down to it still feel like there is some luck to simply being alive, there is some positivity to just being here and experiencing it outside of a lot of a lot of other things that I think become a lot more nuanced. So a lot of times just the story of like “we are alive and it’s a magical thing. Stop, don’t think it’s commonplace.”
seth has surrounded himself in the Thomas community with folks who inspire him to tell this story, often referring to Thomas itself as “magical” or mentioning how lucky he feels to live and create there.
“The community around me is a really, really, really big part of who I am and who I’ve become as an artist and why I live here. Anytime anybody wants to do an interview about me as an artist in this town, I can’t help but say I owe so much to the people around me and the community that has been really supportive and also that has perpetually kept me in awe. And I feel really lucky about that, so I’d like to just get that out there too.”
Check out more about seth’s work at his website http://www.theartofseth.com/