Painting can consume weeks of Bens life before something finally snaps me out of it. If I’m not painting, that same energy usually moves into digital art, video, graphic design, or even my garden. It’s less about the medium and more about the process of creating itself. Ben usually spends up to two years on a single piece, slowly developing complex color vibrations and forms of attraction that exist beyond subject matter. No part of the canvas is treated as more important than another.

Meditation. Healthy living. Family. Nature. As often as he can, Ben can be found somewhere in a national forest painting in direct sunlight, working in rhythm with the environment around him. The connection to nature isn’t separate from the work — it’s part of the process itself, from the light and color to the energy and stillness that shape each piece.

Ben would use the $25,000 to finally create a real studio space for the work and my family. Right now Ben is a single dad living in a studio apartment with his children, surrounded by paintings, easels, art supplies, computers, and screens stacked into every available corner. There’s barely room to move sometimes, but he keep creating anyway. Having an actual studio would mean stability, space to work at the level Ben knows he can, and a healthier environment for both art and his children.