David Seiler
Interview with Kathleen King
portrait by Peter Honig
February 23, 2008
Tell me about your background and early life.
I was born in Vallejo, and raised in Benicia, CA. I was very energetic and physical – loved playing outside – and very lucky to have been brought up with tons of love and praise. I was born in 1978. I like to think that I was born at the same time as hip-hop.
Sugar Hill Gang. I bought that album back then.
Yeah? Wow, they were great.
How'd you get into making art?
My dad encouraged me a lot. One of my earliest memories is that we used to do drawing contests. He thought I would love to draw, and I did. My mom is an excellent cook – being Mexican and taking some culinary courses in Europe – always cooking and baking. I loved to watch her create stuff for me to eat. I think that's where I get my art-making/crafting abilities.
Benicia was a great place to grow up, and many famous artists had studios there. Robert Arneson and Manuel Neri are two that come to mind. Meeting Manuel let me know where being a respected artist can go... chillin' and makin' art.
I also really loved toys like my sister's Barbies or any toy that was a figure. He-Man was where it was at for me. (Laughs) In elementary school I remember taking old paper and making huge Space Wars with lasers, aliens, explosions, crazy cliffs and craters – all from the side view.
I did art in high school – drawing and ceramics – but it didn't really connect with me until college.
Where did you study art?
San Francisco Academy of Art. I went to become an animator, and do computer animation. But the Academy of Art makes you take all these other Foundation classes. That was the first time I ever made a painting. Then I took a sculpture class, and I was hooked. I graduated with a degree in Sculpture.
I know you are a gymnast. Did you start that at a young age?
I started doing gymnastics when I was 7. We were coming into Berkeley five days a week for five hours a day. It quickly engulfed my life. I stopped when I was thirteen, when I started high school. Teaching gymnastics and being with kids is something I've always loved, so I did that in high school, and I worked my way through college coaching gymnastics at night, and I still do it today. Right now I coach full-time in Emeryville. I wish you could see me bounce. Trampoline is heaven. I love it! I bounce!
What did you do after graduating from the Academy of Art?
I took a job working for a commercial sculptor in West Oakland, but I didn't like making sculpture for some one else. I would have no energy or time for my own vision. For some reason, I've always loved the feeling of Oakland. Oakland just feels like home to me. I really wanted to move to Oakland at that time, but in 2002, I moved to the Peninsula with my best friend Benjamin Anderson, who is also a fine artist. We graduated in the same class. He is now getting successful. He's got everything going for him. But I'm slowly coming up on him. (Laughs)
Do you have a studio? You must need a lot of space to make sculpture.
I finally moved to Oakland in 2006. My studio is in my living room. My bedroom is small but my studio is large. I've got my wood shop in there. It's really a great space. Right now it's scattered with beer bottles, nudes, tools, paint and tape all over the walls because I have been drawing.
How long have you been working for your upcoming show? What is the work you'll be showing?
Ha, well I'm a procrastinator, so I've been working for a month and a half. I haven't done a portrait study in a long time, and I'm doing one-third-size figure sculpture of my muse. She's standing straight, hands by her sides, fists clenched, toes turned up, and her eyes are closed. I'm interested in the raw figure. Straightforward, not posed. I'm fascinated in what the figure represents, and how people perceive it.
As for drawing, I'm doing this little warrior-guy that I've been developing, and his adventures.
The character that you like to draw repeatedly, Little Man. How did you come up with him and what is he about?
He is my Oakland warrior/self-portrait. I'm influenced by the art of indigenous people and their warrior figures, from Alaskan to Mayan to African culture. He's about being a man on this soil that is not ours –scared but tough.
My mom was born in Mexico City, visited California here in her 20s and fell in love with my father. I grew up speaking fluent Spanish; it was my first language. I'm stuck in the middle, that's why I draw the Little Men in black and white. He's a little scared. Ugly, but at the same time I show him as being strong. Sometimes headless, I have an affinity for cut off heads. (Laughs)
I like those too. Like Aubrey Beardsley's Salome holding the head of John the Baptist.
Yes, always, always! Something strikes a chord in me with chopped off heads. It just never gets old. I constantly draw heads and they're either floating, chopped off or hollow. What I love about that is that it strikes a chord with most everyone. Every culture has some sort of representation of some great violence with the removing of a head. What's another cut-off head story?
Well, Judith Beheading Holofernes. She was a great Jewish woman-warrior.
I think that's the reason I fell in love with fine art, because it takes seriously all these crazy things I love. I have a sketchbook from sixth grade, when I used to steal my neighbor's Playboys, and draw these awful portraits of naked women. I felt like I had to hide it at the time. But then I discovered art history –all these chopped off heads and beautiful nudes. Then when I got to study world art history, and indigenous art, I truly just fell in love with it all.
As an artist, don't you go through life looking for those things that really excite you, and know that this is what you want to make art about?
Exactly, I always like to see if I can do something, or do it better than another artist. I feel like we're all walking meat grinders. Whenever we see something we like we just throw it on top of our little heads and grind it in, and throw it up. That's art.
What materials do you use to make your sculpture?
I use anything I can get my hands on. Clay, bronze, wood, steel. I love to make bases. One of my sculpture teachers said I was better at making the bases than the actual work.
Uhhh, yeah, thanks, huh? (Laughs)
It's cool, though…
The last piece you had at Mercury 20, Gringosincorazonypiel. Is that really Sculpey and glue?
Yes, it is. 24-Hour Longs and Home Depot are the best art stores for me. I like to use materials that some artists would turn their nose up at. Things I find on the street. I do poor man's art, but kind of in a cocky rich man's way. (Laughs)
Future plans?
Finding balance with money so I can have more bouncing, art, time, love, food, learning, coaching, and laughing.
Mercury 20 seems to be a gallery where a lot of the artists have time-consuming day jobs. But they are still able to make their art.
It's proof that we love what we do. We need it. But I can't wait until I can make art full-time.
I know, I've never been able to do that. And now that I have the kids, I have to make money for them.
Hey, art is the best and worst form of birth control! It makes me want to focus and be more selfish.
Some people say making art is selfish, but then again, art is giving.
That's true. But even when you doing it for other people, you are also doing it because it makes you feel good, and that's selfish.
What if it's a feedback loop? It makes you feel good to make art, then your joy is expressed in the work, and you are encouraging your audience to connect with joy and creativity, and if they carry it on—just think how good it could all be!
I think I agree with you. All I want to do is laugh…and make more art…and show more art…and sell more art…