Lisa Hoffman and Charles Atkins, MD

Published September 28, 2006

Charlie writes:

A few weeks back we started to receive entries for our Pulling Teeth for Topics Competition. It’s been a good haul, and one of the first to come in was the suggestion that we interview Woodbury’s award-winning artist, Peter Seltzer, who is to be this year’s featured painter for the Four Seasons of Flanders Benefit Auction and Dinner.

The oil-on-canvas painting that Peter created for this fundraiser—Spring Time for Natalie—was made on location in Flanders Nature Center in the studio that had once belonged to the center’s founder and patron Natalie Van Vleck .

When Peter arrives at Lisa’s condo, with his black portfolio tucked under his arm, Lisa starts in by asking, "What kind of media do you work in?"

"I work both in oils and pastels. Whenever I feel stale in one I switch over to the other."

"What about acrylics?" she asks.

"I don’t care for them; they don’t have the depth of color and vibrancy that oils and pastels have."

"How did you get started?" she asks.

"In art? That’s a funny story. It started with dreaming about being an artist at the age of 10. But I didn’t do anything about it until I was 38. I was reading an article in an art magazine, and I thought—I’ll try it. So I took some mushrooms out of the refrigerator, put them on the kitchen table and drew them. I was happy with the results and in that moment something deep moved inside me. I had to find out why I’d never lost the dream of being an artist. I sold my business, so that I could pursue the dream..

"What business were you in?" she asks.

"Are you familiar with Bethel? There’s an ice cream shop called Dr. Mike’s Ice Cream. I used to make their ice cream. I guess making ice cream is sort of an art form, but after eight years of that I was looking to move on."

"That took guts," Lisa comments.

"People say that to me. But fortunately, I wasn’t supporting a family at the time. I was single and the pull to paint was just too strong. I needed to go on to a different phase of my life. That’s when a very serendipitous thing occurred. I had a friend who owned a frame shop and one day when I came in she pulled out something to show me. It was a drawing of a Native American and I was stunned at how much improvement there’d been in this particular artist’s work. I commented, ‘she must have been studying with someone. Do you know who?’"

Peter then tells how this led to his becoming the studio assistant of famed portraitist Daniel Greene. "For the next five summers I fulfilled that role. It was such an exciting time, like I was living in the renaissance where they had master-apprentice relationships.

"You do portraiture now?" Lisa asks.

"Yes. Portraiture is a tremendous challenge. Although, there was a time where the art world looked down on portraits."

"It’s kind of a bread and butter job," she comments. "It’s also very hard to please people. Either they want a photographic image or something very flattering…by the way do you work from photographs?"

"I prefer to work from life."

"How would you characterize your work?" I ask.

"I’m primarily known for my still-life painting. I think my work generally goes in two directions. One might be called contemporary still life and the other is symbolic still life. The inspiration for those paintings comes from a lot of different sources, everything from dreams I’ve had, to reading I’ve done and even my daily meditation practice."

"When you do portraits, do you go to peoples’ houses or do they come to your studio?" Lisa asks.

"Most recently I did one for Harvard University, the subject—Connie Buchanan was the founder of Women’s Studies in Religion at Harvard’s Divinity School—lives in NYC so I made trips to New York and painted her there."

"What does a portrait cost?" I ask.

"It depends on size and the complexity of the composition. Whether there’s a neutral background or whether it’s an interior or exterior. In terms of the portrait market, you’ll find a wide range in price. Those at the very top will charge a hundred thousand and up…that’s not me. I’m in the middle."

"Do you maintain a presence on the web?"

"I’m just starting, although if you Google my name you’ll find all sorts of references."

Lisa then shares a bit of her past as an artist’s model. To which Peter remarks, "A group of local artists and I meet on Thursday nights and hire a model—this keeps the cost down—and we paint."

At this point Peter passes his portfolio over to Lisa and then to me. His work is spectacular. The subject matter is evocative and rich and the colors are lush and vibrant, often mixing inanimate and living objects together in his still lifes. As Peter talks about the incredible number of visual artists and the reality of being a working painter, I can readily understand his success. His paintings hang in museum collections, he’s currently part of multiple shows both in Manhattan and Connecticut, he’s been featured in art magazines and his work has won many awards including the 2004 Allied Artists of America’s Gold Medal of Honor. To view his paintings is to understand his success.

"I feel so fortunate to finally be doing artwork," he says. "I had started that dream so early in my life, but didn’t get to start living it until I was 38. Now, it’s a dream fulfilled."

The Four Seasons of Flanders Benefit Auction and Dinner will be held on October 28 at the Southbury Crown Plaza Hotel. Tickets are $65 per person and include dinner, open bar, silent auction and live auction with Woodbury auctioneer Wayne Mattox. For more information call the Flanders Nature Center at 203-263-3711.

To contact the artist Peter Seltzer, he can be reached at his Woodbury studio 203-266-5870.

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