SILVER CITY — In an art-dense place like Silver City, Harry Benjamin stands atop the local creative pantheon — in terms of longevity, productivity, quality of work and critical acclaim.

Born and raised in Bayard, Benjamin has lived 58 of his 61 years in Grant County — and one of those lost years was in Pleasanton, just over the Catron County line. (The other two non-resident years Benjamin spent stationed in Germany as a guest of the U.S. Army from 1968-70.)

Though most locals know Benjamin, whose gallery-cum-residence (or maybe that should be residence-cum-gallery) is located in the heart of Silver City's Arts District at the corner of Yankie and Arizona streets, first and foremost as a painter/sculptor/potter/printmaker, a large part of his local legacy stems from the fact that, in 1967, he helped found the Silver City Museum.

It is therefore appropriate that, when the museum celebrates its 40th anniversary this July, Benjamin and his work will take center stage.

"He was there at the beginning, so it's logical that we would feature a Harry Benjamin retrospective at our 40th anniversary," said Susan Berry, who took over management of the museum 25 years ago when Benjamin opted to hang up his curator's gloves and make a go of full-time artwork. "Especially in the past 10 years, more and more people have discovered his artwork. He has been a very active artist throughout his life. It's amazing to me how much work he has produced."

Birth of an Artist

Benjamin was essentially born with a paintbrush in his hand.

"I have been painting ever since I can remember," Benjamin said. "I was an artist throughout high school at Cobre, I majored in art at Western New Mexico University, I taught art for a while at Cobre High, I did art work while I was in the military, I used the museum as a studio during the 15 years I was curator and I have made my living doing art work ever since I bought my house 25 years ago."

Yes, his house. There is no place like it in Silver City, which is saying a mouthful, because this is a town chock-full of eccentric, art-based abodes. With Benjamin's home — the business part is known as That's a Pot Shop — it's impossible to tell where the gallery ends and the residence begins. His kitchen blends into his office, which in turn blends into a display area.

His bed lies in between walls adorned with his original work. Ditto his living room. Even his yard is as much open-air gallery as outdoor space. Unlike a lot of galleries that double as residences, there is no line of demarcation.

Almost every single piece of art that adorns the domicile is original work. And that work covers the stylistic gamut, from intricate Mimbres-esque pottery to landscape paintings almost as large as the landscapes they represent.

Though he is still as creatively active as an artist can be, Benjamin simultaneously works almost full-time as a gallery owner.

"When I left the museum, where I worked six days a week, I wanted to be able to devote as much time as possible to my work," Benjamin said. "My gallery is open six days a week, so the main difference in my life since I left the museum has been the fact that, instead of having Sundays off, I now have Mondays off. I get a lot of work done, but sometimes it doesn't seem like I have much of a social life."

 

Next challenge

The process of putting together a 40-year retrospective has added significant workload and stress to an already stretched-thin artistic existence. It's not as though Benjamin can just pull a few dozen paintings off the wall and call it good. He is a working artist, which means that most of what he has produced throughout his long career has been sold. So, for the past month, he has been gathering in work from all over the place. Until he began the "bucket-brigade" process of moving the work that will displayed at the 40th anniversary gala — which takes place July 1 from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Silver City Museum on Broadway — on Friday, his gallery was even more than usual filled-to-brimming with Harry Benjamin originals.

"It has been a heavy-duty emotional process," Benjamin said. "When you look at work that you did 20, 30, 40 years ago, your mind naturally goes back to the place you were mentally and emotionally when you did that work. It's more intense for me because I have always worked in phases and series, so I will not only do a specific work, I will likely do many stylistically similar pieces. I may spend more than a year on certain series, and, when I see the work that came out of that time, I think about my friends and what was going on in the world at that time. It's humbling."

 

Hometown legend

Though his work has transitioned from, say, collages to landscapes and back, one thing has remained a steadfast constant in Benjamin's personal and creative life: his love of Silver City.

"I know a lot of people will think that a serious artist should live in Santa Fe," Benjamin said. "But I have always loved it here. It's a fun town with a lot going on. But the main thing has been the friendships I have maintained for my entire life. I still socialize with people I've been socializing with since I was in college at Western in the '60s. I could never leave that."

These days, Benjamin works only on commission, and much of his recent effort has been focused on massive landscapes depicting Gila Country. He can spend as much as six months on a single painting.

But, like many artists, he is reluctant, or maybe unable, to pick out a favorite piece.

"My artist friend Joe Sherman owned a gallery in Old Town in Albuquerque for 25 years," Benjamin said. "When he was old, he was asked what his favorite piece was. Many years before, he was asked by a friend to make a spout for olive-oil container. He did, and it fit perfectly, and he was thrilled. He said that was his favorite piece, because it was for a friend and it fit.

"I was once asked to make a garlic holder," Benjamin continued. "It had to have the little holes in it, so the garlic would stay fresh. I had to make a little lid to go with it. When I was done, the lid fit perfectly and the garlic holder worked perfectly. There was another time I made a deer-poop necklace for a friend who loved it. There's something about making something for a friend that makes them happy that is wonderful. Those are my favorite pieces."

The deer-poop necklace, as well as a whole lot more of Harry Benjamin's work, will be on display at the Silver City Museum from July 1 though the summer.

There will even be a signed, limited edition poster of one of Benjamin's landscapes that will be on sale for $35, according to Berry. There will be 300 made.