Today’s episode is an interview with Vancouver based artist Ben Skinner. Window displays, gold leaf vs. nose breath, scaffolding made from foam core, OCD, and a romantic/artsy story about how Ben met his wife. Yep, we covered it all! You can listen right up there, or you can subscribe on iTunes. Here is what we talked about, in the order that we talked about it. First up, images from his day job as a visual display artist for Aritzia / TNA:

The final shot above is in the Aritzia studio… where the magic happens, and where Ben spends most of his waking hours. These next images are from the very first show that I ever curated, and of course I chose Ben as the artist {Honfleur Gallery, 2011, Washington DC}. This is the show that had Ben’s foam core scaffolding, among all sorts of other amazing pieces:

 

I wrote several posts that showed Ben’s work in progress leading up to, and then during that show that you can see here, here, here, and finally here. Can you tell it was my first show? So many posts!? Moving on… here are three of his gold leaf pieces… beware the nose breath:

Gorgeous. I love those pieces so much {Gold Leaf, lacquer, glass, mounted to MDF}. Next, the first post I ever wrote on The Jealous Curator was about Ben, and this was the piece {thread and paint on wood} that I wrote about… and now I own it!

Pretty and kinda sassy! Next up… pieces from his show, “COLOURING OUTSIDE AND READING BETWEEN” at Back Gallery Project in 2014 including the reverse paint-by-numbers that almost drove him crazy:

That table. Ah-mazing. Oh, and this next bit is so fantastic! Back where it all began… art from his younger days, in his home town of Petrolia, Ontario. He’s slightly horrified that I’m showing this, but I HAD TO! {and still hoping that his dad can track down the birding magazine cover!}

“Ben’s Pen Exchange” … you’ll have to listen to get the whole story:

Gorgeous wood-burning work by Ben’s very talented wife, Genevieve Dionne {who I have also written about before. Here.}:

And finally, Ben’s two inch cube collection… well, a tiny part of it {ps. if you have access to any two inch cubes, I’m pretty sure Ben would love one!}

Phewf! And that’s that… for now! Thanks to Ben for telling me all of his stories, to Saatchi Art for sponsoring, and to all of you for listening… the next episode will be up next Saturday!