The Word is Out

The Prints of Tom Benton

Posted in In the Press by People's Press on August 8, 2011

Thomas W. Benton: artist I activist moves radio show host and Time Out columnist Jonathan Bastian

My great regret and insecurity is that I know basically nothing about visual art. It began when I was a kid, and my ability to draw was literally so bad that my kind teachers would sometimes clandestinely finish my sketches for me to avoid the embarrassment of having my attempted “cat” look like a genetically altered bison.

I’ve spent many lonely afternoons in modern art gallery’s just trying to feel something – you know, some kind of emotional rumblings, which for me, at least, arise when engaging in writing or music. I desperately want to believe in a quote from Waugh’s “Brideshead Revisited,” where he writes, “You never know how beautiful the world is until you try to paint it.”

So I’m pleased to admit that somehow, someway, when I leaf through the pages of the new book “Thomas Benton: Artists/Activist” by D.J. Watkins published by People’s Press, I really do feel moved.

In ways that I can’t explain, these prints shake me on a visceral level. You don’t need to be an art historian or a painter to get these. You just need to have a set of eyes.

For me, opening this book is like stepping back into time — back into my childhood in Woody Creek. Many of these prints hung from our walls. They tell stories. For example, every time I see the image of a man in a graveyard, standing next to a tombstone that says “Greed” and “737” followed by “There’s Some Shit We Won’t Eat,” spools of history unfurl before me — airport debates, Woody Creek caucuses, a community coming together to hash things out.

When I see the print with the Dostoevsky quote, “the degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons,” I’m reminded of the afternoons when I strolled into Sheriff Braudis’ office to say “hi.” My eyes always seemed to gravitate towards this very print which hung on the wall behind his desk.

And if I’m experiencing a wash of memories as mere a 27-year-old, God knows what people who actually spent their lives in this valley feel when looking at these prints.

In truth, I never knew Tom Benton. I know his son, Brian, whose a fantastic guy and genius mechanic (I swear he knows more about BMW motorcycles than anyone in this state).

Yet somehow, it seems, the sprit of Tom is ripe in these pages — there’s the architect, the painter, the thinker, the activist. He had an uncanny ability to fuse words and images, which is a rare, rare thing. Each quote selected was clearly done with meticulous care.

At the same time, I feel almost wistful, and, at times, despondent, when looking at these prints. Though I can’t speak for visual art, these days, the literary world has become cravenly apolitical. It’s rare to find a writer who’s really an activist — a writer who has something to say. Instead, they hide behind the veil of fictional words and keep themselves out of the fray. This, might I add, is in stark contrast to the boiling Arabic world where the poets are still the revolutionaries.

Something has changed. Or died.

And revisiting the work of Thomas Benton is like filling my lungs with icy air that jolts me back awake. It reminds me what happens when one man decides to make something he believes in — when he puts his ass on the line and decides to take risks with his art and with his message.

Jonathan Bastian is the host of “Page by Page” on Aspen Public Radio, Wednesdays, 6 p.m., and is syndicated on four stations around the state. He finished Joyce’s “Ulysses” and will tackle that, possibly, in the next column.

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