WRITER SPOTLIGHT: Sean Burdeaux

Sean Burdeaux and I were in the first grade together, we were the only two left-handed kids, and we've been good pals for a very long time. We were in our first band together and later collaborated on some other musical experiments. Sean, my fellow lefty, certainly possesses the necessary right-brained attributes for making obscure, comedic, one-of-a-kind, creative weirdness, and I truly love seeing the genius that transpires from all of his undertakings.

With that being said, on Tuesday, April 8th, Magic Brotherhood will bring you WORD: A Night of Spoken Lit, Art, & Music featuring live readings by Sean Burdeaux along with fellow creative writers Yesi Padilla and Tashi. He has also collaborated with visual artist Sergio Sanchez on several paintings which will be shown that night, and for the duration of that month. 

Show starts at 8 pm, live reading at 9 pm, and be sure to give your ears some goodness by catching Idyll Wild perform at 10:30. 21+, no cover, Doods Foods served til 10. 

TIN CAN | 1863 5th Ave.

Check out the interview Magic Brotherhood had with Sean about his upcoming exhibition, creative endeavors, plus info on the other artists contributing to the show!

MAGIC BROTHERHOOD: Your upcoming show at Tin Can is called WORD. What can we expect to see/hear at this show?

SEAN BURDEAUX: This show will be an amalgamation of visual art, poetry/spoken word, and music. I will be releasing my book titled "Pharmaceuticals, Lemonade" and am excited to read both excerpts from the book and some new stuff I've been working on.

MB: The show features writers Yesi Padilla and Tashi as well. How did the three of you develop a creative relationship? Have you ever collaborated on a project before?

SB: Tashi is a prolific writer with a fantastic sense of rhythm and rhyme. We've shared poetry over the years and her stuff is second to none. I saw Yesi perform at The Void (RIP) and thought she'd be a perfect fit for the show. 

MB: You are a jack of all trades in this show because you will also be displaying some work you produced with artist Sergio Sanchez. Tell us about the collaborations that the two of you worked on.

SB: Sergio is a regular Renaissance man: skateboarder, videographer, photographer, painter. I was working on some drip paintings and showed them to Sergio, asking if he'd want to collaborate. He took my paintings (think Jackson Pollock but really boring), picked out the most prominent colors, and then worked with the direction of the dried paint flows to create these really stunning subjects. I like to say that he turned my paintings into real art. 

MB: What else can we look forward to at this show?

SB:I might cry.

MB: How did you get your start in creative writing / visual art? Do you find any parallels between the two or are they completely different for you?

SB: I've always loved a good turn of phrase. I took creative writing classes from middle school through high school and they were always my favorite. It's very liberating and fun to play with words and the limitations intrinsic to agreed-upon structures of grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc. Is not it? 

Painting is purely stress release for me. I can't impose too much order on what I'm painting. I have tried and the results are underwhelming. I love watching the colors drip slowly down the canvas over the course of a few days and then trying to find something beautiful in the mess that's there. 

So I think poetry and painting are pretty different for me. Words have (arbitrary) meanings and are more like puzzle pieces that I can fit together in interesting ways, while visual art (at least the way I do visual art) is a playground of colorful meaninglessness whose significance is applied after the fact and mostly independent of the parts involved in the process. Sort of. 

MB: What else can we look forward to in the near future from Sean Burdeaux?

SB: Wow. It's these kinds of questions that induce these little existential traumas in me...

I hope to continue writing. I want to work on another book, hopefully one that is longer and maybe a little more focused. Or maybe not focused, but a little less 15-year-old-valley-girl-writing-on-her-tumblr and a little more I-hopefully-have-something-kind-of-meaningful-to-say. 

MB: Where can we find yours, Yesi's, Tashi's, Sergio's, or Idyll Wild online?

SB: I'm a big fan of an almost non-existent art movement called slart. slart (lowercase "s"), whose biggest exponent is the quasi-anonymous figure known simply as "Douglas", describes intentionally really bad and totally hilarious drawings, video/sound combinations (aka "movies" or "videos" or "vids" for the internet kids) , and approaches to life that rely heavily on overwhelming amounts of douchey sarcasm and making it a point to not make a point. Some of this stuff can be found on instagram on the accounts @harnessthemadness and @recycleddolphin

I was hoping that my book would be a continuation of the slart movement, but I haven't gotten word back from the main guys as to whether my work is really as slartty as I hoped it would be. 

You can check out some of Sergio's stuff on instagram at @sergiorolli

As far as us word-writers, I don't think we really have anything online. Maybe I'll grow up and get a website sometime soon.  

Idyll Wild is all up on dat bandcamp tip: idyllwild.bandcamp.com is the one-stop shop for drugged-out, long-haired spacey dark pop.



Be sure to catch Sean's big night Tuesday April 8th at the Tin Can, opening begins at 8 pm. See you there!
xo,MB