Kansas painter Callie Allen Seaton has considered herself an artist since she was a child. “As far as I can remember, it was first grade,” she said. Seaton received her earliest art training from her mother, painter and teacher Helen Marie Allen, then from the many classes she took wherever she went. She has earned two bachelor’s degrees in the process.
Seaton, an abstract oil painter, moved to Kansas in late 1973 “Because my husband is from Kansas,” she explained.
Seaton met her husband in Washington, DC, while she was a student and he worked as press secretary for U.S. Senator James B. Pearson. It was there that she developed her abstract style.
“In the 70s, when I was in the Washington, D.C. area, I was lucky enough to get connected to a painter from the Corcoran College of Art and Design who came to the Art League of North Virginia” where she was taking classes.
“I painted on ungessoed canvas — it was called the Washington Color School, or stain painting, because the color would bleed through the canvas. I had three little kids and my husband David took care of them so I could (paint with the group) once a week.
“I did that for 2 years and it was really exciting.”
But when her husband’s job with the senator ended, “we went back to his roots,” Seaton said. David’s family owns Seaton Publishing, and runs newspapers in Kansas, South Dakota, Nebraska and Wyoming, she said.
“We moved to Neodesha at the very end of 1973,” Seaton said. “It was kind of an adventure, but it was isolating. We were hours from Wichita or Tulsa,” Seaton said.
Used to big city life, Seaton did what she could to alleviate small town tedium. “We moved to Winfield five years later,” she said. That was 1978.
“There were 12,000 people in Winfield,” Seaton said, a big town compared to Neodesha. But more importantly, “it’s only 45 minutes to Wichita — There’s a pretty vibrant art community there.” While her husband carried the family banner, Seaton went back to school.
THE ONE constant in Seaton’s art career has been classwork.
“I did it here and there and everywhere. When (my daughter) Elizabeth was one, I took a summer school class. Everywhere I went I tried to take a class,” she said. She continues to do so.
“I took printing classes in college and had stuck with acrylics. I did some rather abstract expressionist pieces at Southwestern College in Winfield, then got back into oils at Wichita State University. I switched (back) to oils because I was told I had to for class,” she laughed.
She has stayed with them since, although her ways of using them have changed.
“I've been evolving,” she said.
Seaton uses “brushes, a palette knife, and a brayer,” which is used in print making to spread the ink. Her paintings tend not to have a particular objective when she begins.
“I don’t start with anything in mind — I just go for it and then I have to rein things in and come to a conclusion. I’m really free with color,” she said.
Seaton also uses a shower squeegee to move her paint, and “plastic putty knives, and really good paper towels.”
Considering her tools, one would believe Seaton applies her paint with a heavy touch. Instead, she says, “I’m not using a heavy coat of paint. I’m doing a lot with transparent colors.” Seaton uses “Liquin,” a special paint thinner. “It’s like using more water in acrylics,” Seaton said. “I don’t use turpentine.”
She will demonstrate all her tools Saturday morning, at a 10 a.m. workshop at the Creitz Recital Hall in the Bowlus Fine Arts Center.
But, Seaton said, “I am not a teacher.”
If anything, she is a perpetual student.
“I love to take classes. I really encourage people to take classes. Would I have thought of using a squeegee? I learned that in my latest class. I really think people should not get too comfortable with what they’re doing and try new things.” she said.
Abiding by her own philosophy, Saturday’s demonstration is a first in Seaton’s career. “I’ve never done this before.”
But it should be all good, as Seaton emphasized “I enjoy getting feedback and being with other students.
“What I love the most about painting is the process. I love doing — not only is it relaxing, I realize I need to communicate. But I don’t want to make things that are pretty — people can not like it.”
So at Saturday’s demonstration, she will not lecture, but do what she knows best: paint.
On Sunday, the 68 year-old will tackle another first. She will give a talk about her work at a reception at 2 p.m. at the Bowlus.
“I’ve not really got up and talked about art and I have to do that at the reception,” she said.
BESIDES PAINTING, Seaton has served on the Kansas Arts Commission and on the board of directors of the Winfield Arts and Humanities Council. She coordinated Winfield’s Art in the Park for six years. She has also engendered a new generation of artist. Her daughter Liz is curator at the Beach Museum of Art at Kansas State University, she said.
Seaton said her daughter had a natural ability in art, and all she did was leave supplies around for her to use.
“The point is to have supplies available, to make it seem important.” That’s what her own mother did for her, she said.
“My mother turned 95 Sunday. She is a remarkable woman. The art comes from her.”
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