So sorry to hear this news so late. Sean was a good friend and shipmate. One of the only ones I talked to off of the boat. Forever will be missed

Sean was an amazing artist and was a wonderful creative collaborator in our artist community at Building C.  He will be missed! Our deepest condolences to Sean's family!

We miss seeing Sean at the studio. Thank you for being in our life Sean. 

So so sad. He is missed and was beloved. So sorry. 

Classic bag of fishing clothes

Road trips!

The perfect dive bar after touring museums

❤️❤️❤️

Poem for Sean penned by friend Rick Levine

1.

an imprecise phrase

such as this

spoken some 358 years

and 16 days ago

is the precise cause

of you, dear heart,

all you feel

and forsake

as you are bucketed

like a sprung fungus

plucked from rot

in a wild curiosity of hunger.

it’s okay, kiddo,

there is no blame

if history weighs

like a cartoon anvil

dropped on our spongy brains

flattening thought

and secreting nonsense

as we whisper ourselves

into the margins

of the map.

time is an—never mind.

the ocean is big

until you’re on it

and then each wave is a bracket

on a rickety table

supporting a mug of coffee

and the real fault lies

in mistaking the rudder

for the keel

and the snap of the sails

for the susurrations

of truth.

2.

if you strung together

all cause and effect

that ever was

and ever will be

moving in three dimensions

along virtual planes

of labor, romance and litigation

still you would not reach

an understanding of infinity

though you might get

a decent explanation

of Twinkies and

the London School of Economics.

3.

so here we are

not adrift

not lost

not unloved

not alive and not dead

not in between

no, not alienated

nor trod upon

but complete unto ourselves

and defined by the beauty marks

we ogle in private.

4.

when the gears in the clock

reveal a machine

of perpetual self-erasure

and the universe expands

like a noisy casino

at 3:47 in the morning

somewhere on the Strip—

yes, where is your place

of prayer?

(for Sean)

Lualda with Randy and Stephen Berksen

Sean was one of a kind. He was a true gentleman, artist, and rugged individual. He will be missed.

Submited by Howie Cohen

Crew of Cormorant Isle

I have never had any idea how many people loved my son.  He did not talk about himself as though he were important in any way, or display any pride in what he had done, or show that he knew he'd had an impact upon his world.   I am extremely proud of him (not just because I am his mother), and tried to tell him what an extremely talented carpenter/construction designer he was, how he obviously was valued by his boat captains because they depended upon him to get the boats ready for fishing, how he knew everything there was to know about how to make art and actually did so, and what an amazing compendium of human knowledge he had quietly gathered during his too-short life, and generally how good a person he was.  He was sweet, interesting, quiet, cynical, extremely funny, frustrating, comforting, generally astounding, and the best father and son ever.   Over the years I watched him come home from Alaska and proceed to rent another art studio and spend months using his carpentry talent to make it into something that any of the wealthy New York painters would have envied.  His canvases got bigger and bigger as he continued painting, until they needed a gallery with huge walls.  He would give me paint as presents in containers that would have lasted me for years, and I have several gifted canvases that are so big I don't have wall space to work on them.  The pride he felt in his son Ben, and the love and hope he had for him, and the worry he felt for him knowing what this world will be, was extreme.  Ahava forever, son.