We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Benji Hicks a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Benji, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to go back in time and hear the story of how you came up with the name of your brand?
Brush, Knife and Baren LLC The name represents the three skills of woodblock print making.
The brush represents drawing or painting to create a design.
The knife represents the carving of the woodblocks.
The baren represents printmaking. The baren is a bamboo sheath covered disk used in Japanese woodblock printing, to hand press the prints.
I use the Japanese woodblock printing tools and techniques of Mokuhanga. Mokuhanga was the preferred printing method during Edo period Japan.
Benji, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I was born in 1970 in Columbia, South Carolina. With no formal training, I am a self-taught artist and woodblock print maker. Working professionally as a carpenter and painter, including murals and sign painting, I have always enjoyed drawing, painting and wood carving.
After discovering the art of Mokuhanga (Japanese woodblock printing), I decided to combine my skills to create woodblock prints.
I am just as passionate about the tools, materials and techniques of woodblock printing, as I am about the images I create. I draw inspiration from art, culture and the natural world around me.
I am most proud of the fact that I learned everything about my craft on my own. With the help of a good book and a couple really good YouTube channels and some trial and error, I have my technique figures out.
Also with the support of my loving wife, family, a great group of friends and a wonderful artist community in my area I have been able to have some success.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
I had wanted to be able to sell my art for a while. When a local art market was being built in my area, I thought, let’s give it a go. Being a new market, traffic was slow. I didn’t make very many sales. It was a bit frustrating and made you think, “ oh my art isn’t that good”. “ nobody likes it”. But that wasn’t at all true. I stuck with it and week after week it kept getting better. More people were coming to the market and I was learning every week about how to make a better set up. Over time ,about two years, I had a good system for set up and break down, I was making sales, and I had made so many connections in the local art community, things are going very well and my business is still growing everyday.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
Don’t sell yourself short. When things were slow in the beginning, I thought, lower my prices to make sales. That doesn’t work. Especially selling art. If someone likes it and they want it, they will be happy to pay what it is worth. Lowering the price will not make someone decide they like it. If they don’t like the price, that just means they aren’t the right person for that piece. Be patient, the right person will come along.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @benjihickart
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/benjihicksart
Image Credits
Benji Hicks