Fred Stonehouse: Artist, Comedian, Storyteller

As part of the Artist Now! Lecture series, Milwaukee native Ben Stonehouse came to speak about his paintings. However, Ben did little talking about his paintings in specific to materials, content, or process (though I'm sure if someone had asked him he would have talked about those things).

Unpopular Bitch 2009 acrylic on found paper 9” x 6”

 Students and public filling the auditorium seats of ACL 120 on Thursday night were captivated for an hour and half by Ben's stories. He seemed to have a detailed story for every piece he showed! My sculpture professor told me the next day that he joined Ben in dinner after the lecture and said that he simply did not stop. This guy has a lot of wisdom up his sleeve about being an artist, and a person.

Devotion Deviation 2011 acrylic on panel 10" x 8

My favorite message that Ben Stonehouse had to say was to always stay true, that truth had many forms. He says a sure way to look stupid is to act like you're smarter than you are. I see this happens in artist statements. Writing an artist statement is a struggle for me, do I sound like a pompous art snob? Am I blowing simple things out of proportion? What does this work even mean? Should I move back to the suburbs and live in my dad's basement?
These are all questions we ponder from time to time.

Right?

 After the lecture, a student asked about how Ben got his work into a gallery for the first time. Ben said that he admired the gallery, and would visit every week to look at new prints and dream of someday owning one by saving up enough money to finally purchase one of the prints. After 18 months, the gallery owner realized that Ben was not an art collector. Once it was discovered that Ben was an artist, the owner asked to see his work and ended up booking him a show in the gallery's experimental showing room. I took this advice from that story: Show genuine interest in what you like locally, but do not approach these situations as an artist but as a curious art lover.

ANYWAYS-

Love the work. Loved the talk. I asked Ben about critiquing the senior painting student's work at UW-Milwaukee and he agreed, so at least I have that to look forward to. That and my next over priced chai tea from The Grind. (Someone riddle me this: if The Grind uses Collectivo coffee, why does it taste so much worse?)

(Not sure if I'm allowed to post images, will gladly take them down if it's not cool)