Artwork / 2006 / Kristan Seemel

This is one of my brothers, and, if I’m an artist, it’s all his fault. Like all good older brothers, he teased me relentlessly growing up. One day, when we were maybe nine and six, we were drawing. He looked over at what I was doing, and said quite simply “that’s not so bad.” A compliment is never sweeter than when it comes from a critic.

My brother is a director and theater-maker, and I’ve been lucky enough to work with him on two theater pieces, Mac Wellman’s A Murder of Crows and Trickster both in 2004. For the latter project, I created a series of portraits of the actors in character, like this one for example.