James Seffens
Medium: Painting Studio Location: Wills Building 3 - Studio# 106 43-50 11th Street Email: jseffens@netzero.com Website:: https://jseffens.blogspot.com Artist Bio: James Seffens' career as an artist began in NYC in 1980. In that year he began working in the Hell's Kitchen store-front studio of the sculptor Nicolas Cortes. Working with Cortes he learned modelling, mold-making, and a very particular age-old process for casting papier-mache multiples. This training was in addition to James credentials as a self-taught, and self-employed wood-worker and a painter of landscapes and city scenes. There has always been more than one track to James' career. As a fine artist his signature works, which include paintings, constructions, and modelled sculpture have been in many group shows. As a craftsman he has created and marketed collections of small mixed-media sculpture and wearable masks. His work as a toy-maker was featured on a nationally televised PBS program. Another aspect of James studio production has been the work which he has fabricated for other fine artists and for designers in the areas of visual merchandising, furniture, interiors, and costume. Clientelle has included some well-known people in all of these areas, and works that James executed have been exhibitted internationally in museums, galleries, and auction houses. During the 30 years that James worked out of the Hell's Kitchen storefront he sold his work directly to the public. He also used the studio space as an exhibition space, mounting numerous group shows of neighborhood artists and craftspeople. James current studio is in Long Island City, a short commute from Hell's Kitchen where he still resides. James was born in Ohio in 1953, and grew up in a predominantly rural area, surrounded by nature and an extended family. Country life lead to a good deal of DIY projects, and many useful skills were first acquired in the early years, along with a love of nature. All images and text copyright James Seffens