Since completing his MFA at the Rhode Island School of Design, Ben has taught and chaired at several institutions. Currently he is the Head of the Freshmen Foundations in Art program at Millersville University, a career he finds as creatively challenging and fulfilling as producing artwork. He teaches Two-Dimensional Design, Three-Dimensional Design, Drawing, Life Drawing, Jewelry, Public Art/Public Space, Sculpture, and Art Seminar.
In addition to educating young artists, Ben maintains a regional, national, and international exhibition and lecture schedule. He has been featured in several prominent publications such as Metalsmith, Art in America, and American Crafts; he has been an artist in residence at Hotelpupik, in der Schwarzenbergschen Meierei, Schrattenberg, Austria; and he has been the recipient of several notable awards and grants. Ben’s art is part of the permanent collection in such museums as the Philips Museum, Racine Art Museum (RAM), Charles Wustum Museum, and Les silos, maison du livre et de l’affiche, Contemporary Collection, Paris, France.
Ben blames his parents, specifically his father whose side he seldom left, for becoming an artist. His paternal (Dublin, Ireland) and maternal (Cantanzaro, Italy) grandparents immigrated to the United States after World War I. Ben’s father, an altruistic man, taught him technical skills and construction logic, analytical and creative problem solving skills–as well as to honor, recycle, and repurpose found materials and to respect everyone regardless of their age, gender, sexual orientation, education, vocation, or income. His mother, a fiery ball of passion was also a driving force in his life. She exemplified social responsibility and activism, be it the importance of family and friends or speaking out and taking a political stance. Together they shaped Ben’s ethics, morals, social consciousness, empathy, logic, and nurtured the curiosity and creative spirit that is present in his artwork. Although both of his parents have passed, they instilled the tenacity and perseverance that enables Ben to flourish as an artist and formed the basis from which he has created a prolific amount of artwork.
Immediately after graduate school, Ben worked in the hot and cold glass shop of international glass artists Kathleen Mulcahy and Ron Desmett. Here he continued to perfect his glass blowing skills and explore glass as a medium of expression, often mixing it with precious metals to create both jewelry and sculptures. During this time he also expanded his one-of-a-kind approach to making art to include a jewelry production line that has since been sold at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art, and Boston Fine Arts Museum. His jewelry has also been represented at the American Craft Council Fairs in Baltimore, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Chicago. His colorful production line of aluminum chopsticks continues to receive international attention and is exported to Japan and China. It was during this period in Ben’s career that then-editor for Metalsmith magazine, Frank Lewis, cited in an article that Ben “looks at the world through the eyes of a child, but with the mind of an adult.” Ben has spent the last thirty years working as a professional artist proving Frank correct.
Ben became a visual artist because he believes in the power of art to change individual behavior, communicate with diverse cultures, and generate change on a global scale. Since the 1990s, his artwork has thematically focused on the human condition, a subject that has allowed his art to continuously evolve. His art is an analytical response to our human behavior, condition, and existence. This exploration of what unites and divides us informs and forms the basis of his art.
Ben does not hold to the traditional belief that an artist is wedded to a specific medium. Instead, his postmodern approach to making artwork focuses primarily on the presentation of an idea and then the manipulation of materials. By concentrating on the idea, he is free to use any material deemed appropriate. Ben mainly uses found objects to construct his sculptures because their inherent socially charged vocabulary conveys the complexities of his ideas and assembling them is reminiscent of childhood play
. Ben usually finds his inspiration while listening to National Public Radio, reading the New Yorker, the Washington Post, or the New York Times. After he has an idea, he searches for materials that have the appropriate visual language. Once committed to the materials, he experiments with their arrangement until finding a satisfactory solution or presentation.
Over the years, Ben has honed his ability to focus his ideas, assess the social and psychological context of potential materials, and formally resolve a piece of artwork. His artwork has been featured on stages and exhibited in museums around the world. It has inspired playwrights, performance pieces, one-person plays and improvisational musical melodies. Most recently, it was featured in a modern dance piece.
Having left the wonderful beaches of Laguna Beach, California in the 1990s, Ben now splits his time teaching in Lancaster, PA and enjoying life with his partner in Washington, DC.