We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ben Behunin. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ben below.

Alright, Ben thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Have you been able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen? Was it like that from day one? If not, what were some of the major steps and milestones and do you think you could have sped up the process somehow knowing what you know now?

I decided very early on that being a starving artist was totally over-rated. My father was an entrepreneur, but financially he was marginally successful. I wanted something better for my family. I wanted to be true to myself and my art, but I didn’t want to put myself and later my family in financial peril in order to pursue my passions. So, I jumped in with both feet. I had no safety net, ie, rich parents, a bank account, a sugar momma, so I had to work hard and smart. I took some risks and made the best work I could make and prayed hard. I married my wife about a year after I’d been making pottery full-time. We have never starved, or even come close. We purchases a modest home two years later, built a studio behind it a year after that. I feel like I’m living every artist’s dream—to be able to make art and enough money to support my family and still enjoy my craft 28 years later.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I began making pottery in high school, now 35 years ago. I continued to study art and business through college. I apprenticed in Germany in 1995 for four months and knew I wanted to be a potter when I returned. I continued studying in Hawaii and at the University of Utah, but I dropped out with 16 credits left when I felt like my creativity was being misdirected by professors I didn’t trust.

I make high-fired stoneware pottery that is highly decorated and often graphic in nature, telling stories or expressing thoughts or messages that are upbeat, often spiritual and always encouraging. I’m an optimist and my work reflects my attitudes. I love making work that makes people think, stop, feel something and smile.

I first borrowed a friend’s studio, then shared a studio with a friend dozens of students we agreed to teach, then built a studio behind our home 23 years ago where I work today. I still work 50-70 hours a week, creating and designing. I still love it. I pursued my PLAN A and I’m still doing it.

I continue to take commissions from clients on a regular basis, but I always suggest that they will get my best work if they give me a budget and some basic ideas and let me go. I’ve never had anyone be disappointed and I generally far exceed their expectations.

I make the best work I know how. And when I learn more I do better. I like making work that brings smiles, happiness and meaning into other people’s lives. I feel like that’s my job as an artist—to spread beauty and joy. And that’s what I aim to do everyday. It’s become meaningful to me and my clients.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

My father, and sometimes my mother, told me many times in the first few years that they expected me to fail. They’d never met a potter who made any money. That was discouraging, but I continued on, thinking about the many potters I’d met and interviewed in Europe during my apprenticeship and others I’d meet at art festivals. I still have yet to meet a rich potter, but I have yet to meet an unhappy one. That’s what I wanted—happiness. And I knew that if I was happy and was making happy work, people would support me. I still giggle when I do an open house and people line up to hand me their money. My parents couldn’t have been more wrong. My daughter is making and studying art and I have been behind her every step of the way, encouraging her to blossom. She’s going to be awesome!

Unlearning is really learning a better way. Happiness is worth far more than big pay check and security.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

I love making stuff out of mud. I love the transformation of dirt into beauty. It’s still magic for me. I love telling stories in clay and expressing myself in pictures and words on a material that will be around for millennia. It’s meaningful and gratifying to be able to connect with others through my art and have them respond to it in personal ways. Pottery is a tactile art and one that invites intimacy as you commune with it in the process of nourishing yourself. I’m grateful to play a role in the process of nourishing body and spirit. I feel like I am fulfilling the measure of my creation.

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.potterboy.com
• Instagram: Niederbippboy
• Facebook: BenBehunin