Michael & Kathleen Seiler
Profession:
Five Words About Me:
MICHAEL: Pied Piper, spokesperson, indefatigable peacemaker
KATHLEEN: Tenacious, pavement planting, bedbug banisher
One Surprising Skill:
MICHAEL: Taking the stinger out of the bee without getting stung.
KATHLEEN: Seeing potential in abandoned people and places.
Mike and Kathy Seiler are artist-placemakers in Zanesville, OH. They live in a downtown neighborhood well known for abandoned houses, prostitution and opiate abuse. They have committed themselves to reclaiming two residential blocks of vacant and abused housing in order to re-establish a vibrant, diverse community/neighborhood. This is not gentrification. This is resurrection. They can tell you how to rehabilitate two blocks with a $30,000 dollar line of credit.
Michael uses asphalt and alkyd to paint museum size artworks. He and his wife own Seiler’s Studio and Gallery at 129 South 7th St where they do their neighborhood work. He has both a BFA and an MFA from The Ohio State University. In April 2019, his work will be shown in Cuba in conjunction with the Cuban Biennial.
When not rehabbing houses, Kathleen writes poetry to record the progress of her thinking: reflecting on nature, entropy, life, death, and subject matter digested routinely by poets. Self-published small volumes preceded her recent work 38 Years in Appalachia, which was featured May 2018 in a group show of Zanesville/Appalachian artists at the Decorative Arts Center of Ohio in Lancaster. It is available on Amazon. The next book will be The Water Show, finished in 2015, but not yet published.