We’re looking forward to introducing you to Benjamin Howard. Check out our conversation below.
Hi Benjamin, thank you for taking the time to reflect back on your journey with us. I think our readers are in for a real treat. There is so much we can all learn from each other and so thank you again for opening up with us. Let’s get into it: What are you being called to do now, that you may have been afraid of before?
What I’m being called toward now is intentionality. I’ve always been prolific and productive, but I haven’t always steered that output toward a sustained, directional body of work. Now, I’m more confident and organizationally aware in how I build a cohesive practice.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
My name is Benjamin Howard. I’m a visual artist and painter and have been based in the Philadelphia area for nearly 30 years. I work primarily from impulse and instinct more than premeditation. Painting has become a lifelong investigation in learning. Over time I’ve developed a language of improvisational and distinct mark making where I balance color intuitively. I may have a loose idea to frame my compositions, but I enjoy to let paint build images themselves during the process. The resulting images are an amalgamation of part memory and part spontaneous production.
Okay, so here’s a deep one: What’s a moment that really shaped how you see the world?
The births of my two sons, Jack and Henry, reshaped how I see everything. Becoming a parent forced me to slow down and pay closer attention—to time, to repetition, to the small details that quietly carry meaning. Guiding them through stories, especially at that age when imagination and reality overlap, reminded me how powerful images can be before they’re explained or justified.
Reading children’s books with them their whimsy, bold shapes, invented worlds, and emotional logic reconnected me to a kind of visual thinking I’d drifted away from as an adult. Introducing them to art, and watching how naturally they respond without self-consciousness, helped resolve my own focus. It clarified why I make images in the first place: to create spaces that invite curiosity, orientation, and wonder rather than answers.
In nurturing their imaginations, I ended up re-nurturing my own, and that shift continues to shape both how I parent and how I work.
What fear has held you back the most in your life?
The fear that’s held me back the most is the anxiety of fully committing to knowing I have the ability to thrive creatively. I have made choices to favor stability over complete surrender to the work. For a long time, I carried the belief that playing it safe was responsible, even as it quietly fed self-doubt and the fear of failure. Not failure as inability, but failure as exposure of being fully seen in the work without a safety net. Recognizing that tension has been a turning point, and learning to trust the work enough to step into it more completely has become part of the practice itself.
Next, maybe we can discuss some of your foundational philosophies and views? What truths are so foundational in your life that you rarely articulate them?
Practice is the most rudimentary and foundational part of any pursuit. At the same time the hardest step is simply beginning making something at all. Once you take that first step it opens the path toward routine and good habits.
Before we go, we’d love to hear your thoughts on some longer-run, legacy type questions. How do you know when you’re out of your depth?
I feel like this is a tightrope every artist balances on. Crippling self doubt, inability to perform and the general undermining of your own skill set.
If I felt like I knew all the answers though there’d be no fun in contemplating the ending. Things that are too mapped out and formulaic have never held my interest long enough to complete them. Working intuitively takes more time, but it offers a far more rewarding set of problems to solve.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Benhowardart.com
- Instagram: Benhowardart
Image Credits
portrait taken by: Bridget Massa Photography
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
