Meet Dylan Seeman

We were lucky to catch up with Dylan Seeman recently and have shared our conversation below.

Dylan, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.

I failed, brass tax, just an immense amount of failure. My opinion is we get to choose our purpose, it is not given from some outside force. And so in making choices it requires making the wrong choice. Takes time to learn what our right choices are too. As a youngster, I thought I was a rebel without a cause, that didn’t pan out. I thought I was a rock climber for a while, then a sailor for a long time and I failed at all that too. All my relationships never worked out, once a week I was late to any job, barely paid my debts on time, I often owed the bank a chunk of my paycheck—feeling like I was out of my body hoping whatever task could just be over as quickly as possible. After attending considerably more funerals than weddings, never been to a wedding…I gave up. Went on autopilot for a few years, my soul collapsed and I was beaten. 

Then late into a listless shift on the ship at the docks—still hungover from the night before—there was this kid painting a mural across from my office. With dull eyes, watching him pull paint around, this little fire in my chest flicked on. It was like a pilot-light soft and small but noticeable. It burned. Too many months I only listened to that flickering flame whispering inside. With each week, month, year, I wanted to add more firewood to the pit. And with any spare time or cash, I began adding, a few times the rain almost took it out. Though now, I look forward to my projects, to my day, to the art I am making, I yearn for it; I am here. Yes, I still have many mishaps happening in my life but that’s okay. Life ceased to be in terms of success or failure, now I have my life’s work and I can’t imagine spending my life any other way.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

I’m a painter from dawn’s early light till the last rays that dance across the evening sky. Slinging paint on a canvas, making images, it’s my thing. “What’s special about it?” This question plagues me, keeps me up, burns the mid-night oil wondering what it is that makes me dedicate my life and soul to this exploration of pigment on canvas. You see, movies are about two scenes and how they relate, and emulates life better than life does. Sculpture is about molding an object into the world, the 3-D and it relations to ourselves in space. Music brings me to tears, poetry says those things that are impossible—does painting posses anything special?

I think the only thing that comes close to explaining the feeling I see when I finish a piece or see some master’s brushwork, is akin to when I’m strolling around town chatting with a friend or maybe driving to school. A life filled with these rushing around motions, here to there, this to that, and as time passes, we get used to the sights and all that remains is these faint memories of blurred colors and sounds of laughter, tears, hopes, and despair.. And then BAM! We encounter something beautiful. I’m not talking kinda pretty, like truly beautiful, might be the way a leaf floats to the ground, a pair of slippers, or two friends dancing, or a lover drooling onto a pillow in the soft amber morning light. The shape of beauty is a difficult subject and that to me is what painting is all about. These moments, these things that make us stop, only for a second and firmly but gently remind us that there is a reason to be in love with the world. And I think no other medium can understand the overlooked perfect beauty life occasionally presents. I’m chasing beauty.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

Have love. That’s it. Sounds simple but I’ve found it to be the toughest thing in the world to do. So to anyone just starting out on this journey; learn to love proper and you’ll do no wrong.

Alright, so before we go we want to ask you to take a moment to reflect and share what you think you would do if you somehow knew you only had a decade of life left?

It’s not the challenge personally I face that messes up my stride. It’s the challenge that faces most people. We live in a world filled with injustice, prejudice and apathy and that really bothers me. How are we supposed to talk about humanity, arts, and the things that make this world wonderful if the conditions for being human are inaccessible to most people?

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.dylanseeman.com
• Instagram: @dylanjamesseeman

Image Credits

Paige Pappas