Moteque Magazine: June 2010

Ben grew up in Colorado and spent some time on the west coast where he
began painting. He has been designing for about 10 years, and has gone
to school to practice dentistry. He is planning his 3rd solo show for
this August in Denver, CO.

How did you get your start in art and design?

I have always been a bit of a tech nerd, and got in early when CD
burners were first coming to market. I think I was like 12 or 13. I
used to make compilation CDs and then design the labels for them on
the computer. That was sort of my intro to design. After a while I
started using the computer to make stand alone art and before long I
was painting my designs on canvas.

You're not a career painter, do you find it hard to be as prolific as
you would like to be, not being able to dedicate all of your time to
your art?

I think if I painted every single waking moment, I would still not be
as prolific as I would like to be. I used to think that if I could
make a decent living off of painting I would do solely that. But
having another source of income from something totally different than
painting and design is kind of a good thing. It's actually a nice
little hinderance that I don't rely on painting to make money. It
takes the pressure off the NEED to create and keeps me centered on the
DESIRE to create. Those are two totally different places to be coming
from, creatively.

You have said something similar regarding training in art - that
feeling of being able to come from a different place, creatively.

Yeah. Well, sort of. I have no idea what sort of media I might be into
if I had gone to art school, I am definitely learning new materials on
my own and new techniques, but it is a very slow process and I am
ignorant to a lot of different things in the art world. But on the
other hand, ignorance can be bliss. I pretty much know what I know,
and stick to it. And I feel like I do it well. I think by keeping
things simple, I can focus more on the content of what I design rather
than the materials or techniques that go into it. I mean, I gather
inspiration from a lot of different sources, but when it comes time to
compile them into a piece, I am not focusing on the way something is
supposed to be done and I can only draw on what I feel is the best way
to go about it. So in a sense, I think that lack of knowledge is
really a way of keeping everything I do all ME.