My Story

I grew up on the west coast of Florida, traveling to New Orleans often to visit with my paternal family since I was two years old, I have a faint memory of visiting my grandmother on Alvar st. She was the daughter of Brother William Clark who along with the Sharfenstein family started the Grace Baptist church on Alvar and North Rampart streets.

My deep Louisiana roots date to 1778, when Isleños Canary Islanders, sent by the Spanish monarchy settled St Bernard parish. The family name then was Acevedos. I feel pulled to visit Ysklosky, where many of the Acevedos families settled, a hub of oystermen and shrimpers. In another life, I would have lived on one of those rigs. I fish with a buddy there often, and going in and out of the launch is where many of my images come from. On the water, we get up close and personal with the boats, and there are an unlimited amount of shapes and textures, along with the birds and the smell of the saltwater that I feel connected to.

I have been living in New Orleans proper and continuously since 1994. Living in houses that were built with seven hundred year old felled cypress and ancient long leaf pines that used to cover the whole of southeast United States. We live in history with this city for better or worse. In the 90”s I lived on the 4700 block of Prytania street upstairs in a Victorian tri plex uptown. The second house was on the 5000 block of Camp street with an artist-jeweler life long friend Monique Leon. (Look her up)!

After that I was fortunate enough to buy a house on the 1700 block of Clio st where my re-education began. This house was built in 1890, had been broken up into six apartments in the 70’s and rented out by the week. The panes were broken in many windows and it had been raining inside the house for years. It had the history of plumbing in it and had been electrified in the thirties, but retired in the seventies to include early Romex wiring. I had very little experience working on houses and had a tool set that included a hammer, a skill saw, two screwdrivers and a tape measure. This is where I lived for the next twenty five years. I adopted my neighbors and dogs off the street. I met my wife working at the coffee shop on the corner of Race and Magazine st. Back then the lower section of magazine st from Jackson ave to the warehouse district was abandoned. My wife and I were married in Colosseum park, had a second line back to our house, and it wasn’t long before we started our family. We survived the recovery of Katrina, and eventually fixed the rest of the house. We were some of the lucky ones. Eventually, through the lack of effort by the city council, the entire town became overrun with short term rentals, and our neighborhood was no exception. Taxes forced us from that house, only to start again in the seventh ward on Broad st near st Bernard ave. We are hoping the same does not happen again.

The fact that this has always been a pot of gumbo culturally, and the fact that people here have “house manners” along with the aesthetic beauty of New Orleans makes it hard to leave. When you pass another person on the street, no matter who they are, what class they are from or what color their skin, or how old they are, it is customary to say “alright” or “hey now” and acknowledge each others humanity. Traveling, I feel like a fish out of water, the guy trying to say hi to everyone.

There is a story that is always told, that New Orleans is one continuous party. It is true that people here do their best to enjoy life, And that almost everyone I know has a passion that is equal importance to their employment, but that kind of life comes at a cost. It is a fact is that if you want to survive here, you have to have some kind of hustle. Wether you see someone selling shrimp on the side of the road, or walking around the quarter selling pralines made with a family recipe, selling hot plates from their front door a couple days a week, or challenging tourists to a chess match on a fold up table on Bourbon St. These are things unique to this place and I love to shine a light with my brush when I see it happening. These hustles remind me of the will to survive in a city that care forgot before this place was even part of the United States. New Orleanians will always find a way.

The unfortunate reality for us is that sea levels are rising, marshland is disappearing all around us. We are thriving here on borrowed time. When you encounter my art, I hope you get a sense of the culture, the hustles, the smell of salt water, of butter, oil, onions and garlic in a hot pan, the sound of traffic and kids whipping buckets with drumsticks for dinner money. Tip the Band!

How I have learned art (so far)

An art store opened behind our house when we were living on Clio st. My four year old had never been inside one, I thought it would be exciting for them to see where colors came from and how may ways there were to apply them. This was what  it took for me to remember what I forgot in high school. That I had a great desire to make a statement  on paper or canvas. From that moment, being able to express myself visually has been mixed into every activity in my life.

In my early twenties, I studied Jazz at UNO when Ellis Marsalis was the chair of the Jazz department, and like when I studied drummers, I knew I would have to start learning the history of painters. Buying used art books online became a side job. Reading them is still a task for the cracks of my life. I continue juggle taking care of my chores as the stay home gig working parent, drumming several nights a week for money and my role as the family handyman. At first, I painted at night and mid mornings, after making countless watercolor paintings that would have made my kindergarten teacher proud, I started buying expensive instructional videos trying to paint along, because I knew I would need instruction  from someone who knew what I was missing. I learn by seeing and doing.

Eventually, I was able to invest in three classes at The New Orleans Academy of Fine Art. https://www.noafa.org/ First I took the advanced watercolor class  then, the color theory and design class where I learned how to think about and the color wheel. Both of these classes were taught by the watercolor realist and calligrapher Patti Adams. https://www.pattiadams.com/ The third class I attended was life drawing in pencil with Chris Page. To me, drawing with pencil is the musical equivalent to a cappella singing, the human voice must have been the first instrument in the way a burnt stick may have been the first pencil.  Chris taught me to draw in short lines, chopping out a figure in small expressive marks. I hope to never finish learning to draw.

Next I had the incredible fortune to study portraits in charcoal with Carrol Peebles at the Blue Easel Club. https://www.blueeaselclub.com/ patient and positive teacher, Carol gave me the tools to measure and search out a likeness of anything I drew. The last person I have studied with was Saskia Ozols at the New Orleans Fine Art Preservation Society https://practicepreservation.org/. I do not know anyone personally who has a deeper knowledge than Saskia about the fundamentals and the advanced techniques of painting in oils, now my preferred medium. I have finished two classes with her so far, the figure ala prima in oils, and a long pose figure class with the same medium. I hope to continue learning from Saskia.  I recently started attending a figure drawing group along with working the tasks and writing morning pages, as inspired from the book The Artists Way by Julia Cameron.

Contact Sean directly with questions or inquiries about sales, commissions or just good conversation!