Creative Thursday with Seth Orion Schwaiger

This week we interview Seth Orion Schwaiger, an artist, sculptor, curator based at the Chalet Art Studios in Govanhill.

SSH: So where is it you work?

My studio is in The Chalet just down Dixon avenue from Vicki Road. You could not say the building is well lit or free of dust, but what that space lacks in ideal pleasantries it more than makes up in intriguing architecture and a vibrant community. Home to carpenters, designers, painters, collage artists, and sculptors, The Chalet is an ideal place for idea exchange. If you want something done, there's someone there who knows how to do it.

The building itself is constantly changing and being renovated. The owner, Michael Ball, is somewhat of a brilliant mad man. The Chalet members know that if you don't go to the studio regularly you won't recognize the interior when you return. Along with the roots growing through the walls, the patchwork stove under the staircase, and a mash up of improvised architecture ranging back to the early days of the tenements, this ever-shifting space keeps me on my toes. Its influence on my practice was inevitable from day one.

SSH: What is your discipline/ disciplines?

Seth: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor, Rich Man, Poor Man, Beggar Man, Thief.

I'd like to say simply that I'm a sculptor. This is true, and it is my deepest passion, but sometimes my desires to see something happen drag me into other disciplines. Like all artists, I draw. Sometimes I do a bit of printmaking. Sometimes I paint. What I can't seem to get away from though is curating. I just get an idea for a show and it can become all consuming. It's a frustrating side of my practice, but at the openings it all seems worth it.

SSH: Describe your creative practice or what it is you do? 

Seth: I make. When I'm completely free I tend to sculpt. I enjoy sculpting the human form and the practice is most intuitive when I work life-size. There's always a point in the process when the mass of wood, wax, or stone becomes human – and that's an amazing feeling. You catch the unfinished sculpture out of the corner of your eye and for an instant believe that it's another person in the room. As the sculpture develops the feeling grows. Sometimes I have to put a sheet over the work just so I can focus on something else!

SSH: Tell us a bit about your background
Seth: If there's one place I grew up, it's Wyoming. I went to high school there in Dayton, population 578. I received a BFA from the University of Wyoming in Laramie. I fell in love in Italy with a Texan, the incredibly talented painter Elizabeth McDonald. Eventually I followed her to Glasgow. I've been making art all the while and picking up skills along the way. I learned to cast metal and fabricate in Wyoming, to carve stone in Italy, wood in India, and work with some synthetics here in Glasgow.

SSH: Tell us about your favourite piece of your work?

Seth: Right now it's “Not a Pair between Them.” I enjoy the image and I love the reactions it gets. It's more light hearted than my other work. It would likely be my favourite regardless of its history, but I made the work while traveling and have some good memories with it. Here's the abridged version: I made the wax positive in the south of france with a chip knife I bought at a junk sale there. The work was cast at an iron pouring conference in Wales, which was a complete blast – even through the soggy camping in the rugby field. The work was finished in the hill country in Texas where a really kind Mexican business owner helped me sift through some beautiful chunks of native granite for the base. I wish every piece had a story like this one.

Not a Pair Between Them

SSH: So what are you doing next any up coming shows?
Seth: I've just installed some figurative work in the Broomhill Sculpture Gardens in Devon as part of this year's National Sculpture Prize and I'm waiting to hear the results. You can see the work at broomhillart.co.uk. (give us a vote while your there).

Just took down a show of my work at the Glasgow Print Studio, but you'll have a chance to see some of them again. A selection of the pieces was chosen for a film shoot this month and should appear in the next season of “Lip Service” on BBC3.

SSH: What is your favourite creative blog/ website or other source of inspiration?
Seth: Southsidehappenings of course!

You'd be hard pressed to find a spot online as inspirational as a few drinks in the park with a friend or two. Sometimes you can't get to the park (maybe sometimes you don't have friends) and for those times there's the internet. Here's some good websites: loladupre.com, annepatsch.com, jammdiggity.blogspot.com, carlanovi.com, sheltonwalker.wordpress.com, and artistaday.com is not too shabby either.

Watchers

SSH: What key piece of advice do you wish you'd known?

I'll answer this by relaying a piece of advice I never should have believed. A good teacher once told me that if you just keep working on improving your art then “the money will come.” Unfortunately this is not true. I wish I had never believed her. It would have saved me a lot of frustration. Improving one's art is half the battle – and only maybe half. What is at least equally important in terms of surviving financially as an emerging artist is hitting the pavement. Get yourself out there. Adopt good business strategies. Act like a professional – you are one.

SSH: Do you have a favourite place in the Southside?

Seth: The bathroom in Go Slow Cafe. It is a cultural landmark. Go there and you'll see why. The Cafe itself is a close second. The coffee is as strong as you like it, and Rose can always cheer you up even when on rare occasion she needs cheering up herself. There's always something in the works there whether it be live music or an art exhibition, both of which are of unusually high quality for a cafe.

I recommend the soup.

Tell us about another Southside creative whose work you admire?
Seth: I have to mention two.

Lola Dupre's work never ceases to amaze and is only surpassed by her diligence in the studio. Simon Harlow's skills and problem solving are invaluable to those around him and you can see it in whatever he produces. I've learned so much over the past couple years from both. I admire their practices as much as the physical works they create.

SSH: If money was no option what would you change about the Southside?

Seth: Install a quite subterranean, sub ocean, bullet train system, internationally connected with links to New York, Paris, Rome, etc.. Engineer bacteria to eat asphalt and turn it into soil, leaving a few strips in the center of each former street for bike lanes. Install public bike program. Plant public fruit and nut trees in the former streets and allot garden space to each residence. Create rain powered generators and funnel every downspout through. Support this electricity by offering free gyms in which each exercise machine creates more juice for the national grid. Better yet have the gym pay the members for the amount of electricity they produce.

Healthy people, clean electricity, free food, no traffic, clean air, green space everywhere, well connected... maybe throw in some galleries, museums, and room for public sculpture and I think things would be pretty great.... Then implement a paid holiday every day it rains.
SSH: And finally tell us one other interesting fact about you?
Seth: In the spring of 2006 I went hopping freight trains to go see a friend three states away. I fell asleep on one train during a snow storm. I thought I had died having woke up numb, train still roaring beneath me, and in a pitch black tunnel through the hillside.

For more information on Seth click here