S1,E27: Sculptor - Ben Hammond

Embark on a captivating journey with Ben Hammond, a sculptor whose hands have shaped more than just clay—they've carved a life rich in artistry and mindfulness. From his humble beginnings in Blackfoot, Idaho, to the distinguished halls of the NFL Hall of Fame and the tranquil yoga studio where he teaches, Ben's tale is a masterclass in passion-driven transformation. Alongside tales of apprenticeships and critiques that honed his craft, he shares candid insights into the pivotal moments that led him from farm life to fine sculpture, crafting a narrative as textured as his works.

Throughout our conversation, Ben's reflections on his artistic evolution are both grounding and inspiring. He details his transition from mentee to master, describing late nights in the basement turned personal studio, balancing the demands of mentorship with the pursuit of an independent artistic identity. His story isn't just about skillful hands molding masterpieces—it's about a collaborative spirit, the pursuit of mastery, and the complexities of an artist navigating the space between mentorship and individual acclaim. And it doesn't stop at the studio door; witness the intimate bond between artist and art, where personal passions are embedded into every creation, diverging from the professional to reveal the heart of the sculptor.

But Ben's narrative takes an unexpected bend, introducing the transformative role of yoga in his life. From a devastating back injury to becoming a community beacon, he illustrates how resilience and adaptability can shape not just a career, but one's entire way of living. His experience—mirroring the very sculptures he creates—serves as a reminder that within every challenge lies an opportunity for growth and renewal. Join us for an episode that's as much about molding clay as it is about molding a life, where the art of living fully converges with the fine details of sculpting a meaningful existence.

Please be sure to like, review, follow, subscribe and share the podcast with your friends and family! See you next time 

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Transcript

Erik Nilsson: 0:13

What is up everybody and welcome back to the Small Lake City podcast. As you hopefully know by now, I am your host, eric Nilsson, and we're a day late. It is Saturday, but it's because I haven't had internet for a week at my new house and it has been problematic. So thankfully that's hopefully going to be resolved by the time you're listening to this so we can get back to our regularly scheduled programming. But for now we have a pretty cool guest for this week.

Erik Nilsson: 0:46

So if you've been following since the beginning, you know I've had a lot of artists in Salt Lake. I think it's fascinating to learn more about our art community, how much caliber of artists that we have here and the network that they have, and it continues to grow. But this week we're going to take it in a little different angle. So one person I've met through John Darley and Howard Lyon, who I've had on the podcast, is a man by the name of Ben Hammond. Now, ben Hammond is not a painter. Actually, he doesn't even like painting. He does it every now and then to remind himself that he doesn't like painting. But what he does like to do, loves to do, is sculpt. So he is a sculptor and phenomenal at it. He's been doing it since he dropped out of college professionally, been working on some amazing projects, some huge works of art that he's been able to work on around the community and is right now been working on a multi-year project with a client that I can't name, but it's going to be amazing when it's done. He's also one of few sculptors that do the busts for the NFL Hall of Fame. So does a lot of really cool projects for the NFL Hall of Fame. So does a lot of really cool projects. And like. One thing I'll add is when you go into a workshop or studio of a sculptor, it is a completely different story. So he has all of his works in his studio, all of the different renderings from I mean small first versions, all the way through. I mean 10, 15 foot sculptures.

Erik Nilsson: 2:13

It was fun to see that firsthand, but even more fun to get to know Ben, hear his story of growing up in Blackfoot, idaho, learning how to build and farm, to becoming what he is now a professional fine sculptor and also a yoga teacher, and if you were to see him walking down the street you would never assume that that is what he did. No detriment to him, but he crushes it at both of these things is a great father, a great person in his community and just a great head on his shoulders. So excited to share this one with you guys. Hopefully you enjoy it as much as I do. But let's hear from Ben and his story of how he became a sculptor and what he is working on now. Check it out. Oh yeah, it's good to be back here Because I remember when John, when I came over here the first time with john, it was funny because he's like he prefaced it with like just keep in mind, sculpture studios are way cooler than painting studios and I was like, okay, like why?

Erik Nilsson: 3:06

And then we get there, get here, and I'm like, oh, I get it, everything is on display and everything is there, compared to painting, where it's like, oh, you do work and it's gone yeah, yeah, sculptor studios are the best.

Ben Hammond: 3:21

Yeah, no, it's the highest form of art. Anyways, every painter really wants to be a sculptor deep down they just can't get that extra dimension in.

Erik Nilsson: 3:28

It's kind of like the snowboarders want to be the skiers.

Ben Hammond: 3:30

They can't keep like track of two things at once yeah, I know what that's like because I'm a snowboarder and I tried skiing again this last year with all my friends and I was just like I hate this, I just couldn't. I couldn't do it and I thought it was time to change because, like, my knees can't handle snowboarding anymore and uh. So I thought, oh, I'll ski, because then I got both legs that I'll always be using. Anyways, I'm just like I couldn't do it. I had a hard time.

Erik Nilsson: 3:58

I'm going back to my studio. Yeah, do something else, even if it's just drums or guitar.

Ben Hammond: 4:02

Yeah, but I do that even when I paint. I'll paint every once in a while, kind of to remind myself that I don't love painting. Yeah, and that was something that was interesting when I was in college. I remember taking painting classes and being one of the guys that was like one of the top painters in the class out of that group particular class and my painting teachers were like man, you can paint If you keep this up. You could really do it. And I'm just like, yeah, but I don't love it. As I'm painting, I'm like I wish I had clay in my hands and luckily I had a really good professor. That was like wondering the whole time, oh, should I have done something else?

Erik Nilsson: 4:47

Yeah, Better to get it out now than wake up at your deathbed and be like well, it would have been nice if I would have been trying to think of something like a metal worker or something.

Ben Hammond: 4:57

Yeah, yeah, I don't know. I've taught. It's interesting. I've taught a lot of workshops in the past and I think that was the thing that I learned more than anything from teaching those workshops was how many older people retired always wanted to be a sculptor or an artist, but just either their dad wouldn't pay for art school or everyone in their family told them not to, or they didn't have a supportive spouse or something like that, and it just made me so sad for them because I was just like I always had a really good support system from my parents, from my wife, from teachers that I had in school, and so it was just like man.

Erik Nilsson: 5:43

I'm grateful that everybody's like yeah, go for it, yeah do it, yeah, I mean, it seems like such a small detail, but then to see how that's, even that little bit of support in a direction that might not be the most the avenue that parents wouldn't vote for if they could choose, yeah, but then it's fun to see the parents that support them like a good example. This is howard, like howard because his family's like listen, I love drawing, I like painting, I want to try this out. Instead of like cool, let's make this happen. If you love this, let's. Let's put some like some, some oxygen on this fire. And compared to the ones where it's like oh nope, let's go back to work on algebra, let's go do this, and then I think it's so yeah.

Ben Hammond: 6:21

Now my dad does tell me, though, that when I called him and said, hey, I'm dropping out of school and just going straight into sculpture because this thing that I'm doing right now at BYU is not working out, and at the time he was just like okay. But I ask him now and he's like I have never prayed so hard for my child to have success or that he'd figure out to go back to school. He's like I wasn't going to tell you, because I still wanted you to figure it out. But his words were I raised you to work hard.

Ben Hammond: 6:53

You can always work in the oil fields if you need to. You're the type of person that can. I taught you how to build houses and things like that. There's other things you can fall back on if things don't work out. But he said he was quite worried, but he wasn't going to say anything. He wasn't going to squash my dreams or anything. That's a good thing, but he was also, at the time, he was a superintendent, so he was an educator. My mom, on the other hand, was you know, she's a professional musician. She was teaching piano at Rick's College at BYU-Idaho at the time, and she was all for dropping out. She's just like you know, just cheering behind your dad.

Erik Nilsson: 7:28

Yeah, she's just like oh just go for it.

Ben Hammond: 7:30

She's like those professors at school think they know everything. They don't know anything. They don't know what it's like to be creative, to actually go out and do it. So she's like, if they're telling you you can't do it, then go prove them wrong. Oh yeah, so so here you are proving them wrong.

Ben Hammond: 7:44

I guess I don't know if any of them feel bad for saying that I was crazy to do what I was doing, because I mean, I did have teachers at that time that did think I was nuts to like drop out of school and and work at a foundry and try to figure out how to cast things in bronze and stuff like that. So, but I mean I don't think I tried to prove them wrong necessarily, I just really wanted to do it. It was so exciting. I worked at a foundry and I was seeing all these monuments being cast in bronze and working on them.

Ben Hammond: 8:14

My particular thing that I did at the foundry was patinas, so I was doing the coloration at the end and had I usually I got to spend time with the artists, so I got to meet artists from literally all over the world and man, it was awesome. I just even though I was making like less than 10 bucks an hour and you know we were expecting a kid and it was just like it was all awesome it was just exciting it's such a great foundation to where it was now.

Erik Nilsson: 8:43

But I want to go back to the beginning because, like, obviously you're not from Utah, you're from Idaho. But I mean, how did you even find this? Because, like, to your point, anybody who looks at you and you're like I am a sculptor who is a yoga teacher I don't think they would believe you. And that's no detriment to you. I mean, honestly, it's like a compliment, if anything. But I mean, how did this all get started?

Ben Hammond: 9:03

Well, it started with modeling clay, my mom just getting me some modeling clay. When I was a kid and I always liked to draw, I always had pen and paper and pencil and paper in my hand, was always drawing. And I remember my mom got me like one of those like hobby store, those bricks of clay that come with the like the primary colors. I took them and mushed them all together and it turned into this like gray, brown, muckety, muck, mess Cause there wasn't enough clay. I tried to sculpt something in color. But I'm like with the different colors, but I'm like I need more clay. So I'm like what am I going to do? I'm going to mash everything together, kind of like when I had Legos and I wanted to build something different than the set, I had to just combine all the sets. So I kind of did that with the clay. And that's when I realized that I wasn't as interested in color as I was as form. So having a gray-brown color of clay that I was mushing around didn't bother me. A lot of people couldn't stand to mix those different types of modeling clay, but I did. And so that's when I realized as a young kid that I liked form. I liked three-dimensional form.

Ben Hammond: 10:11

And then by the time I was in high school, I had this awesome high school art teacher, Mrs Marriott, colleen Marriott, and she wasn't herself a great artist but she loved inspiring and pushing people to do great, so she brought in professional artists all the time as much as she could find in middle of nowhere Southeast Idaho, where I grew up and going to Snake River High School, which is outside of Blackfoot, and when I was a senior, each senior year she did a special senior trip where they like went to San Francisco or Salt Lake or somewhere.

Ben Hammond: 10:49

I mean once they even went to like Wyoming so they could go see some original Minerva Teichert paintings. But my senior year she took our class down here to Utah and we went to Gary Ernest Smith, who's a painter, to his studio and we went to Blair Buswells, who was a sculptor. And I walk in to Blair Buswells studio it's just like this garage next to his house and you know I was there, my wife was there. She wasn't my wife at the time, obviously, but I was mostly worried or focused on holding her hand or smooching her or something like that.

Ben Hammond: 11:24

Get something like you know that as a 17 year old version of me, that's what I was most interested in. But I remember walking into his studio and just being blown away. He had a sculpture of Oscar Robertson Life in a Quarter Size that he was doing for the University of Cincinnati and I walked in and it was like walking in and seeing Michelangelo's David. I had no idea that there were human beings alive right now on earth that we're creating like beautiful classical figurative sculpture. And so he had the. He hadn't, uh, put the jersey and the shorts on yet, so he was just doing the nude figure of oscar robertson at that scale. And I remember just walking in there, just being blown away, and then I saw that he had these busts on on the up on the side, just like behind here, and I'm like, are those for the Pro Football Hall of Fame? And he's like, yeah, I do, I'm a sculptor for the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Ben Hammond: 12:23

And I'm just like, oh my gosh, because I love football, I love sports, just everything is coming together in your life at this moment, and I love sculpture and I'm just like and I couldn't even ask a question, I just remember being in there just being dumbfounded and then Blair took our group over to the foundry at Wasatch Bronze, which was an ORM at the time, and we went into this foundry and we got to see the process of casting sculptures in bronze, like the whole process making the mold, pouring the wax, putting the wax in an investment, melting up the wax, pouring in bronze and we got to see them actually pour molten bronze into these ceramic investments and the bronze would cool and they'd break it apart and I'm just like this is like the coolest thing I've ever seen.

Ben Hammond: 13:12

It was like everything that I loved, because I grew up working on a farm, welding, building homes, with my dad and my grandpa building industrial buildings. I'd worked in Eastern Washington between my junior and senior year building these big potato cellars and onion cellars. I just I loved all of the physical labor that was going into creating these sculptures and I just was hooked. I'm just like, from that point on I had in my mind that I wanted to be a sculptor now.

Erik Nilsson: 13:45

By the time I'd um, and in that high school class were you um sculpting at all, or was it mostly like painting?

Ben Hammond: 13:51

and well, your skull you were sculpting, but like there wasn't any instruction, nobody knew how to sculpt.

Ben Hammond: 13:56

I was just curious if they're like, because I took like ceramic classes and I was actually pretty good at ceramics, mrs, mrs bow, uh, bow hannon was the ceramics teacher and she's like I have never seen a student make nested bowls like that actually fit inside each other. So I had it like the project was due with three bowls that nested inside each other, and so I'm using the wheel and I figured out how to use the wheel and she's just like, oh my gosh, you have a gift. And I'm like I can't stand doing this. The wheel, like made, irritated me because I wanted to stop and take that clay and start molding it and modeling it into something. Luckily, when I got to college, at Rick's College, it was the first time that I actually had a sculpture class from a sculptor. Matt Geddes taught the class and man I, just as soon as we were sculpting, I was just I told my wife I'm like I got to do this, I got to be a sculptor. And she's kind of like, okay, I don't know about this, because at the time graphic design had a 100% job placement, and so I'm just like it's the late 90s and I'm just like, oh, I'll go into graphic design. That seems staple. I'm married, I got to support a family and, anyways, carrie, my wife comes into the sculpture studio and she sees some of the stuff that I'm working on and she's like go for it. She's like you've got a gift, she's like you're good. And so from that point on it was like full steam ahead and, like I said I mentioned before, I had, you know, painting teachers and things like that. They were just like, hey, yeah, you can sculpt, let's do it. What can we do to help you? And so I went from that environment at Rick's College.

Ben Hammond: 15:39

Then I went down to BYU, which was much more of a philosophical approach to art, which I don't criticize. It just wasn't for me. I was ready, I just needed practical instruction. I needed competent teachers to teach me and show me how to model a human figure, like study anatomy and things like that, and that I could see early on wasn't going to be happening. So after three weeks I discontinued, I dropped out. I was leaving behind a full scholarship. I had an academic and art scholarship and you know, I just didn't do it.

Ben Hammond: 16:17

My wife, on the other, she was an art major too. She stayed, she stuck with it. She graduated from BYU and she was kind of like I don't know how to paint. She's like I have this degree but I don't know how to paint. So she started doing what I did. She started taking workshops and learning from other painters, and you know she's a great painter. So, but that's how she learned, she kind of, you know, that philosophical approach.

Ben Hammond: 16:43

Like I said, it's not bad for people that are kind of trying to figure out who they are, what they want to do. But I already, from the moment I was 17 and I saw blair's, that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to do monumental figurative artwork, yeah. And so when I was down here going to school, I was just like, okay, if I really want to do this, I got to find the master. So I found the foundry where Blair Buswell was casting his work. I got a job there and every time he would come in I'd say Blair, I'm Ben Hammond, I met you when I was in high school. I want to be a sculptor, you're like.

Ben Hammond: 17:22

I can still remember Oscar Robertson. You know he was flattered, but for the most part he's like who's this weirdo? But after a while I kept on bringing stuff in. I always had stuff there at the foundry and every time he was in I'm like hey, do you have a second? Can you come look at my work? Give me a critique and he'd tear me apart and just be like what are you doing? This is wrong, this is wrong. Which was? He was really generous about that and for me that never bothered me to get torn down.

Erik Nilsson: 17:48

Yeah, because when you're that hungry for it, you want that feedback. Yeah, coming from someone who you already respect so much. I mean, you're just this hungry dog ready to get.

Ben Hammond: 17:56

And I asked every artist that came through there. Even looking back, I'm like, oh my heck, I can't believe I asked that guy or that lady for advice, because nothing personal, but I mean they weren't at the level of some of the other artists, but that doesn't matter. What matters was I learned that people are really generous with their knowledge, and I was never afraid to ask people like well, how did you do that? How do I get into galleries? What do you do? And with Blair, though, I wanted to work for him. I didn't just want his advice. I'm like every time I saw him I'm like, hey, do you need someone to sweep your floors like mush?

Erik Nilsson: 18:36

clay for you, whatever.

Ben Hammond: 18:39

And one day he finally came up to me and he's just like hey, I just took on this big project and I need an assistant. Would you want to come work for me?

Ben Hammond: 18:48

And I'm like heck, yeah, yeah dream come true I'll quit my job right now, and the thing is that I want to articulate here is that he didn't hire me because of my sculpture prowess. He hired me because I grew up building homes, so I knew how to do woodworking, I knew my way around power tools and how to build stuff. I knew how to make molds. I learned how to make molds at the foundry and he'd seen that I can do other things besides sculpt the sculpting. You know, even when I ask him today, blair is like the sculpting was a bonus, but it wasn't really why I hired Ben Um, and I'm the same way, like I need help to build, like right now. I'm like man, I'd love an assistant that could actually build cabinets so I don't have to, because then I could go upstairs and work and then they could just build the cabinets for me. But I just I loved that I got hired by Blair at the same time he was taking on this huge project that he'd never done anything like it either.

Ben Hammond: 19:52

So he was hired to sculpt an entire wagon train. He'd never done anything like it either. So he was hired to sculpt an entire wagon train a city block long in downtown Omaha, nebraska. So he'd be sculpting oxen, mules, people, dogs, wagons, wagon wheels. That's huge, and so it was so fun for me because we were doing stuff that he didn't. He's never sculpted animals before, so as he's learning ox anatomy and mule anatomy, I'm getting all that education where I'm learning about all this stuff too and watching his thought process, how he's doing this comparative anatomy, because he was already a master of the human figure but now he's trying to master something else. So I got to like observe him with his meticulous, strong artistic drive for excellence, try to figure that stuff out, and it was so cool. So in the meantime, I'm sculpting a wagon, sculpting a roll of rope or a shovel or a pitchfork or stuff that he doesn't want to do so I'm sculpting all this stuff.

Ben Hammond: 21:00

But he's in the same room and eventually I earned this trust relationship with him where not only could I sculpt a knot and rope or wagon wood texture or something like that, but he's like help me figure out this ox's foot. Like what, what is going on here? And so he was really generous with his time and open-minded, not only to make time to critique my work, but let me critique his work too. And that was something that I learned early on that, like the great, the great artists look at everyone as a critic, like what do you think? What can make it better? What? What do you not like, what do you like? It doesn't mean you have to take to heart everything everybody says, but it's always good to bounce ideas around and that usually results in the best final product.

Ben Hammond: 22:22

I don't believe in an artist balling himself up in his own little room and not sharing with the world and just one day he's going to open his doors and have some masterpiece. I think the best artwork. Everything I've studied through the years, artists had sort of a group of peers that they trusted that helped inspire them and help them with their artwork, at least critique wise, I mean. There's always the exception. Michelangelo was definitely a renowned loner and very private about his technique and how he did things, but for the most part most sculptors and artists painters were really had a strong group of peers that they relied on.

Erik Nilsson: 23:16

Yeah, and you always think about those groups throughout time that it was like almost like these, like three to five, let's say, artists or painters, that really relied on each other and did have that feedback because, yeah, again, like you can only see to your ability, but if you have someone else you respect and they can see other things grow together.

Ben Hammond: 23:32

I remember so this was blair and I in 2005. We went to boston it was after we finished the first phase of this big wagon train and he's like let's take a break. So let's go out to like Augusta St Godden's old studio and Daniel Chester French's old studio and go to the Boston Museum of Art. And we went to the Isabel Stewart Gardner Museum. And that museum Isabel Stewart Gardner Museum like it hit me in the face All of a sudden. I'm seeing these etch. I saw an etching that Andrew Zorn did of Augusta St Godden's and then I saw that Augusta St Godden's did this bas-relief of John Singer Sargent's sister playing the guitar. And then I realized I'm like whoa, whoa, whoa.

Ben Hammond: 24:12

So Isabel Stewart Gardner, she's this wealthy, aristocratic lady that loved art. She was very eccentric and her house is a museum. Now it's like crazy. It has like a medieval room and then it has like something from the far East that she's like taken apart somewhere and then reassembled here in this house. But she's also created this space where she'd have St Godden's, andrew Zorn, john Singer, sargent, all like hanging out together in her house, like. And I'm like, oh my gosh, like so you got all these masters of of you know different mediums, but all just amazing in their same, same sphere, in their individual sphere and like hanging out together and critiquing each other's work and doing doing paintings and sculptures of each other, and I'm just like it blew me away and I'm like, so that's why, you know, we have like our group of friends. We try to hang out with and critique each other's work. Micah may or may not have called us the art Avengers. I don't know. The art Avengers.

Erik Nilsson: 25:18

He didn't mention that one, but that's stuck now.

Ben Hammond: 25:23

Maybe that's just the text thread title, but it's great to have. That's why Utah is so amazing. Like we go to shows all over the world literally all over the world and people are like, oh, where are you from? I'm like, oh, I live in Utah. And they're like what is going on in Utah? Man, it is like all the best artists are in Utah. Even in the early 2000s, when I was first getting into galleries, like in Santa Fe and Scottsdale, I'd go in there and they'd look through my portfolio and they're like, wow, this is great, where are you from? And I'm like, oh, I live in American Fork, utah. And they're like what is in the water up there? What is going on?

Ben Hammond: 26:12

I remember one guy who's a gallery I was in for a while. He was an English fellow and he's like tell me, why are there so many great artists in Utah? Is it the church? Does the church command you to become an artist? And I'm like, no, the church. Does the church command you to become an artist? And I'm like, no, what? So that was probably one of the strangest things I've ever heard, but it always boiled down to the same thing. People outside of Utah recognized that Utah was this artistic hub, and not only for visual arts. But through the years I've noticed with music and movies and television programs there's so much filming that goes on here.

Erik Nilsson: 26:51

There's something in the water that happens more than you'd think.

Ben Hammond: 26:56

Well, and not only in the creative arts, but every creative field. Like entrepreneurs, like people inventing things, Shark Tank I think like 30% of the people on Shark Tank are from Utah County, so ridiculous like that.

Ben Hammond: 27:11

And it's just like. It's awesome Because I grew up in you know where I grew up in Idaho you made things work. I remember just being on the farm it's potato harvest and you've got a welder and some pry bars and stuff like that. When stuff broke down, you had to figure out how to make it work. You couldn't just like order on Amazon a new sprocket or a new link to your potato harvester. You had to like figure out how to weld it and jimmy rig it and make things work.

Ben Hammond: 27:47

And to me I think I loved the creativity of just the simple farmer out you know, harvesting potatoes, or you know sugar beets or grain, and just having to you know be creative on the fly to get the job done.

Ben Hammond: 28:02

And even growing up on the construction site with my dad and grandpa I mean my grandpa he, he could take a coping saw and miter two crazy pieces of uh, you know, molding together that I'm just like, oh, I can't do it on this chop saw, what are you going to do?

Ben Hammond: 28:20

And he'd like saw with this little tiny blade and make these two pieces fit so tightly that you wouldn't even need to caulk it or put any painter's putty on to finish it and I was just like I just remember as a kid just being blown away by high craftsmanship and people that just solved problems. Like they see a problem, they're like well, let's make something work, let's try to figure it out. And, as an artist, that's all you're doing is you're solving a problem. Why doesn't this leg look right? Why doesn't this drapery or fold look right? Why doesn't this angle of the sculpture look as good as this angle? What can I do to change it? And you're just constantly solving problems. And you're mostly solving problems by making mistakes, doing something that's like oh, that doesn't look right, and you just keep trying it until it's like and you have to keep doing something.

Erik Nilsson: 29:10

Yes, Because if you just sit and stare at it, it's not going to take care of the problem. Yeah, if you keep.

Ben Hammond: 29:13

If I sit down and stare at my sculpture, it's lights out, I'm asleep and he's out, so I have to keep moving, you know, especially with all the projects I'm doing right now, just like there's so many long hours in the studio, but I still love it. I still feel strongly motivated to make whatever I'm doing really great. I don't know why, I don't think it makes me a better person than anybody else, but I feel very self-motivated to create great artwork, or at least something that hopefully somebody considers great.

Erik Nilsson: 29:54

Yeah, and I think that's the beauty of art it's a journey, not a destination. It's not like you just go to law school, you become a lawyer. It's not. You go to medical school, you become a doctor, not to say that's the end of that career there. But it's this dedication to the journey because there is no destination.

Erik Nilsson: 30:11

But you see so many people that are on the same road, the same journey to be there, and you start to realize, hey, we could actually work together, like even with I forgot his name name but the mentor that you had, yeah, blair blair, you're like again, like to be like blair. Hey, blair blair, you're here again. Let me show you this. Can I see that? Until the point he's like all right, fine, come along, and then all of a sudden, like you almost catch up to his pace, where you guys are relying on each other, riffing off of each other, and and with this I mean huge project, where he has to like it's not like he'd be like, well, it's helped if he can help.

Erik Nilsson: 30:42

But if he can't help, then we'll just have him making clay and just doing more like administrative stuff or like behind the scenes stuff, and so I think that's one thing that's been really cool about, um like utah and the art community here, but it bleeds it like to your point. It bleeds in everything else even. I mean the conversations I've had with a lot of entrepreneurs and um investors. It's very communal and it goes back to the original feeling of like Deseret itself, of this um, just the community that grows together, thrives together, and I mean lives for each other too. So so I'm curious, so you have this experience with Blair. I mean, at what point did you leave the house, so to speak, and go fly solo? Or maybe he was always part of the journey as you went on your own.

Ben Hammond: 31:20

Well, he's still part of the journey because, you know, we worked. Not only did we work together, and he was my boss for many years, I mean, I worked for him full time for about from about 2001 to 2009, and then about half part time all the way to 2011. And from that point on, I've just I've got accrued more and more work that has just kept me too busy. And then he'd he'd have me come and work for him for a couple of weeks, like every quarter. And now it's to the point where, you know, the last seven or eight years I haven't been able to really help him at all, but he'll still like have me come over and give advice. Or, if he has assistance, like hey, ben's going to talk you through how to do this point up, or whatever. And then the same thing, he comes over here, like when I was expanding my studio here, like hey, what do you think? How should I do this? This is what I'm thinking. He's like, well, what if he did this? And it's like, oh yeah, that'd be great. Like I'm so glad he came over when we were framing Cause I had half as many skylights, and he's like that is not enough light.

Ben Hammond: 32:22

You got to double that. And I'm like, really, you think? And he's like, yes, and I'm like, oh my gosh, that was. I almost made the dumbest mistake. That's a hard one to go back and change oh my gosh, yeah, the roof and everything like that. But luckily I caught the guys the next day. I'm like I'm sorry, I'm going to a good thing. You told us now If we went any longer it would have been a pain, but that's fine. So they did so. About 2009 is when I stopped working full time, so I was working about 40 to 50 hours a week for Blair and then I'd go home in my basement studio. I keep a picture of over the door right there.

Ben Hammond: 32:57

That's my old studio downstairs in the basement of our old house Humble beginnings, yeah, and I just I love being down there. So I'd get home from work, from Blair's like six or so, I'd spend some time with my family, get everybody, put kids to bed by 9.30, 10 o'clock. I was back in the studio till about two or three in the morning, so that was where I had another five or six hours that I could work on my own stuff downstairs. So the whole time I'm working for Blair and Blair pushed me to do this, he's like you've got to sculpt, you've got to work, you've got to go, try to find your own niche and try to get into galleries. So that whole time I'm working for Blair, I'm sculpting, I'm winning awards, trying to get a name for myself, and the whole time when I show my resume it's like assistant of Blair Buzwell.

Ben Hammond: 33:47

It was funny when I finally changed my resume where I didn't have to ride his coattails, which isn't offensive or anything like that it's just like. At the time that's all I could really say. I didn't have any monumental work of my own that had my signature on it. All I could say was I helped Blair Buswell and I remember finally I started getting some monuments under my belt and I could. Finally, I remember my wife and I were working on updating my resume and she's like I think it's time to say, yeah, you worked for Blair Buswell, put it in the resume back here, but we need to make that not as important. Let's make it about you Got to put you on that center stage and so, yeah, from about 2010 till now, it's been pretty much full time doing my own stuff and it's been awesome. Blair always jokes because he's like, yeah, I trained him so well. Now he's my stiffest competition, which is true. We've competed for the same monuments and stuff, for he-win-some, you-win-some.

Erik Nilsson: 34:47

Yeah.

Ben Hammond: 34:48

And one of the times he was on the committee that helped select the artists and he's really good, he's a good person, so he's not biased or anything or has any ulterior motive, but eventually he's just like, yeah, you were the, you were the best one. So I encouraged him like just artistic merit, let's just go off artistic merit and and um.

Ben Hammond: 35:11

So yeah, and now you know I can't talk about it yet, but eventually we're working on a project. We're working on the same project together. He's doing a part of it and I'm doing a part of it.

Erik Nilsson: 35:20

Oh, I didn't realize he was one of the people doing part of it with you.

Ben Hammond: 35:22

Yeah, so it's, that's awesome.

Erik Nilsson: 35:25

So when you started actually getting in the studio in your basement on your own, I mean, what kind of stuff did you gravitate to? Were you naturally going towards the same?

Ben Hammond: 35:39

stuff you're working with Blair or did you have your own flair it, but it wasn't like it's not the same passion. You have the passion to do a good job. You have the passion to make it accurate and make it artistic, but I don't love horses. Blair grew up with horses and doesn't love horses. His dad had Arabian horses, he's like he had terrible hay fever, so he didn't really like horses. I didn't like horses either. I liked motorcycles. I'd ride a horse. I hated riding things that had their own brain, so I'd rather have complete control and ride a motorcycle. So when I grew up I'd ride dirt bikes all the time. I loved riding dirt bikes. So I'm very confident I can sculpt a horse and a mule and an ox and a dog accurately or any animal. But I just don't feel the same kind of passion or excitement that I do when I'm sculpting the human figure and, in particular, the female figure. The female figure is something that I wasn't very good at at first, and Blair told me as much he's like you really need to work on the female figure. So I started working with a lot more female models, trying to figure out the female anatomy and the differences between male and female anatomy and I got to the point where I really loved the shape of the female figure. Where Michelangelo loves the male figure, I love the female figure and everybody's different. Daniel Chester French, I think, is one of the best sculptors of the female figure I've ever seen, so he's probably my favorite sculptor, who I you know. If I need to go to the well, he's the first. You know drink I take is Daniel Chester French, drink I take is Daniel Chester French.

Ben Hammond: 37:28

But yeah, it was all starting with model studies because that was the advice Blair gave me. He said work from life. So I was organizing and other artists that were young artists like me. We were trying to do all these community model sessions and out of necessity, just because we were all so poor, it's like we got to have a group of five to 10 artists so we can afford to hire a model, to have a model come and pose for three hours. Um, so that's what we did. I just model study, like probably. I had three model studies every week and I think it was by about 2009 that I literally I had read the 10,000 Hours, the Malcolm Gladwell and I'm like I've literally put in 10,000 hours of sculpting from life.

Ben Hammond: 38:11

And the funny thing is that I tell people is like I was not an expert by any stretch. It was like after 10,000 hours, it was like now I finally have enough knowledge in my pocket that I know what I'm doing and that's about it, like I know what I'm doing with the human figure, the human anatomy I've got. I understand it, but it's not by no means that my some anatomy expert or figure expert. But I finally felt confident where I'd compare it to um. I remember, uh, gary Ernest Smith, the painter, told me one fine day you're going to worry so much about your mixing your colors when you're painting. Should I go warmer, should I go cooler? How do I go cooler, how do I go warmer? And you're thinking about all the color wheel and everything. And he said one fine day you just look down at your palate and you're like warmer, darker, and you don't even think about it. You're just you know and you don't. So that's where I got after about 10,000 hours, where it was like, oh, I feel confident, where I don't have to think so much about. This is that bone, this is that muscle, this is that. You know, just that bone, this is that muscle, this is that, you know, just like second nature.

Ben Hammond: 39:22

Yeah, it was just second nature where it's like, okay, I got a figure in front of me. It's all abstract now. It's not bones, muscles and sinews, it's shapes, forms, and now I can start creating artwork. Now I can start designing. And it's funny because you can even see in my artwork where, early on, from about 2004 until about 2010, everything that I did was a single figure that was well rendered, with some drapery on it and that's about it and some other elements, whether it was a nude figure or a draped figure. Then, after about 2010,. All of a sudden, you start seeing more like rocks or dramatic like wings start appearing on some of my pieces and it's like cause. I was done just sculpting the human figure. The human figure was a vehicle to create artwork and whether it became an angel or multi-figured pieces and that's what I really started gravitating towards was multi-figure pieces and that's kind of now what I'm kind of known for is my real dynamic, interloping, interlocking, like multi-figure pieces.

Erik Nilsson: 40:32

Yeah, I mean it's fun to like probably look back as an artist, because even things I've done, I look back and like, yeah, we've come a long way. But it's fun, I bet, to be like oh, here is one of the figures that I first did with Blair. Compared to looking at this, You're like this is night and day difference and seeing how you go, it's such a tangible way too, Because I mean, everybody can see eventually that they've grown over time. But there usually isn't this well-documented, very tangible, very obvious way to see it different and especially as you continue to work and get refined, your eye gets more attuned to it and you only know what you can learn and understand. So I think that's such a fun process to go to.

Ben Hammond: 41:07

It really is and I love looking in here and seeing. I remember when I did this piece here the stonecutter that was like 2004, I think. So I had this rugby player from Samoa that modeled for us and I was really into Mahan Rai Young. I think they had a big show at BYU of like an introspective of all this work. So I did this big, strong laborer and I'm like, yeah, it's a figure and it has some artistic value, but mostly it's about the figure, about the single figure, the tension holding that rock. And then all of a sudden you go across the room and you have that sculpture over there with the eight figures, the seven women and the little boy all intertwined. That I did for the women's walk and I'm like, okay, yeah, that journey from 2004 to 2017 is a huge jump in um, I would say confidence. Confidence would be like confidence that I can pull off a multi-figure, all this drapery, all this hair, all this stuff coming together and making a concise like simple form, even though there's tons of figures and stuff to it.

Erik Nilsson: 42:14

Yeah, and so I'm curious. So I didn't know about the story about when you went to on the trip and you saw that he was working on the at the hall of fame bus. But how did to, in turn, also be one of the people that can make the Hall of Fame bus?

Ben Hammond: 42:25

Okay. So in 2005, blair, finally, and I'd been working for him for about three or four years at that time in 2005, and I'd helped him block in a few bus and he's the head sculptor of the Hall of Fame, he's the guy, he's the one that's got a contract to the hall of fame. If anyone else does a bust, it's his doing, he, he picks the other artists. So in 2005, I blocked in a couple of busts for him. 2006, I blocked in a bust even closer, where he's like, take it as far as you can. And I'm like, okay, so, um, that that one was Benny Friedman, so it was an old timer, it was a posthumous bus. So I just had a few pictures.

Ben Hammond: 43:05

And Blair's like just take it as far as you can. So I did, and then he finished it and, uh, he, the next year he said, okay, this one's going to be yours, this one you can sign, even though he still helped me a ton on it. But he's like I mean I can still remember. At the end he's like I guess you can put I mean you didn't, you didn't do this, you know, I did it Like I, I led, I led you here, and I'm like I remember being kind of like, kind of annoyed at the time.

Ben Hammond: 43:34

Now I totally get it, but I'm just like, oh and it was just interesting the way I'd describe it from about 2007 till now has just gradually been less and less handholding from Blair, where now, like in the last 10 years, I mean it took four or five years before he's like okay, you finally get it, you can do portraits. Now, now you're a portrait artist and so and I've kept learning, and every time I think I'm pretty darn good. Like every year I'm like, oh my gosh, this year's hall of fame bus I did awesome. The three guys I did this year, four guys I did this year. And then I go and see what Blair's working on. I'm like, gosh, dang it Right.

Erik Nilsson: 44:12

When I think I had it.

Ben Hammond: 44:12

Yeah, Well to me, it's just always you can't be 20 extra years of experience. So Blair's 20 years ahead of me in his career. So, no matter what I do, I can't make up for those 20 years, because he's been at it and he keeps trying to improve too, and it's okay. There are certain things that I do better than him, like bar relief, like whenever he's working on a relief, he's like get over here, relief master, you're the guy that understands this. And so, yeah, I help the guy that knows, understands this. And um, so, yeah, he, I help him out, he helps me out, we're.

Ben Hammond: 44:49

It's especially when you're doing a portrait, it's always good to have an extra set of eyes. And, uh, the best part about hall of fame is both of us usually get to meet the guys, and so we know what they look like and we observe certain things and help each other out. And so, yeah, the Hall of Fame thing so from about 2007 to about 2010 was a lot of help from Blair, and then it lessened and lessened and now it's. You know, it's just pretty much it's kind of my gig. It's my gig to inherit from him when he retires from it someday, if he ever does His retirement from the Hall of Fame will probably be at his funeral, where I'm like. Well, I guess he's finally done.

Erik Nilsson: 45:30

Weird. He dropped this note saying it's my job. Now he signed it too. It doesn't look like my handwriting at all, so yeah.

Ben Hammond: 45:37

Well, that's it's, you know. It's literally that's the understanding contractually and everything you know. It's literally that's the understanding contractually and everything but anyways it's just like he just loves it so much. He loves it so much and he's just so good at. I mean, it's not like he's slowing down or getting less capable.

Erik Nilsson: 45:50

Yeah, so I mean it's like I. When I was talking to Howard, I was like oh, like, what's like, what's after painting? He's like, if I were to retire, I would travel and I would paint in life. Right now, I get to travel and I get to paint. Yeah, I don't. And so it's a similar way. It's like oh, I love to sculpt.

Ben Hammond: 46:11

Yeah, it's funny. Talking to our accountant. He's like so what are your retirement plans? And I'm like um, keep sculpting Bigger studio.

Erik Nilsson: 46:19

Maybe yeah, I mean, there have to be. If you keep saying, yeah, that's right.

Ben Hammond: 46:24

Yeah, that's the funny thing is, yeah, I remember when I moved into this studio before I did the addition, I'm like, oh, this is great. And then, like after five years, it was like I'm running out of room Cause it was just, it was just interesting All of a sudden. You know I've been doing I up up to that point to about 2017, with the exception of the women's walk with the eight figures in one monument. I was doing pretty simple monuments for the most part. The last simple monument I did was Martha Hughes Cannon. That will go to the US Capitol and that was in finished in 2020. And then, right after that, I got a commission from Idaho Central Credit Union.

Ben Hammond: 47:06

The CEO calls me up. He's like I want you to do a sculpture for me. I'm like, okay, yeah, sure, I hear that all the time. And then they hear how long it's going to take and how much it's going to cost and they're like, nah, we need it quick, We'll find somebody else. I'm like, okay, you can always find someone who'll do it cheaper, faster, but you know you won't find someone that can do it better. So he said, no, I want you to do it, I want it to be great. And he just basically said here's the space. Start throwing out some ideas, what you think would work. So I started doing some sketches and he was just like oh yeah, these are awesome.

Ben Hammond: 47:39

And this is in about 2017, 2018, I think. And he's just like how big should we make this? I'm like it needs to be big in this space. And he's like, yeah, I think so. So I did like, uh, I did.

Ben Hammond: 47:52

I took a picture of this little like eight 12 inch tall sketch and I blew it up. I blew up one that was 12 feet tall and one that was 16 feet tall and we printed it on paper on a like a foam core, and I just held him out up in the space and I said what do you think? Here's the 12 foot version of it and here's the 16 foot version of it. And he's like it's got to be the 16, right? And I'm like I think so. And I'm like but it's going to be this much. And he's like well, we can do that. And I'm like, okay, and I'm like let's do it. So, all of a sudden, I'm doing this 16 foot tall.

Ben Hammond: 48:29

This one had nine different figures on it this big, huge monument, and I'm trying to do it in the studio by taking it apart and I'm working on pieces and then I have to go to Blair's studio because he has an overhead crane to finally put it all the way back together and then his studio isn't even tall enough to put the final three figures up on top. So I never even saw it finished all the way at full scale until it was cast in bronze. It was at the foundry and it was like 16 feet tall to the top, barely fit out of the door Like we couldn't even like put it on a forklift. We had to make a special pallet that a floor jack could just barely lift it up to slide it out the door and it literally cleared by like a quarter of an inch out of the garage door, so it couldn't have possibly been any taller and it was just like it was awesome.

Ben Hammond: 49:20

I'm like sitting there in 20, let's see, this was probably 2021 when it was unveiled, or was it? No, it was 2022. I can't remember, but it was like it was awesome. I remember going up there and I got this 16 foot tall sculpture up in uh, pocatello, idaho, and I'm and an awesome CEO of a company that's just like do your thing, man. Like what? What an empowering, amazing, like person to let me do that. And it's to this day. I just I look at it and I'm like this is what I've been working towards. This is what I always want to do.

Ben Hammond: 49:54

It was cool because my mom was there and she's like you've been drawing stuff like this with multi-figures since you were a little kid and she's like here it is in bronze. Yeah, got to be a cool mom moment. Oh man, it was awesome. I mean I'm getting a little emotional about it right now. I'll try not to get teary-eyed, but it was so cool to have my awesome supportive mom that she's just like. I mean she couldn't have known what it would turn into, but she was always encouraging that sort of thing and it's cool to see all seven of us siblings all successful at whatever we're doing. I mean, I've got a philosophy professor brother, I've got a doctor sister, a guy one of my brothers builds nuclear reactors all over the world. Oh sorry.

Ben Hammond: 50:43

Kicked the microphone.

Erik Nilsson: 50:44

It's very durable.

Ben Hammond: 50:45

He's really funny. He's like yeah, I'm taxed. I'm like what are you working on now? He's like oh, you're tax dollars at work, you know, building another nuclear power plant for some other country.

Erik Nilsson: 50:56

Oh, it's awesome.

Ben Hammond: 50:57

We won't get into politics on this thing, right? No? So it's just awesome to see what hard work, dedication, single-mindedness can produce in any field. And it just goes back to hard work. Everyone always asks how did you become such a successful artist? And I'm like I grew up on a farm, learned how to work hard.

Erik Nilsson: 51:22

Yeah, worked hard.

Ben Hammond: 51:23

Works never bother me. I never liked video games. I can sit down and watch a movie every once in a while, but I definitely can't watch TV like every day.

Erik Nilsson: 51:33

Just like mindless, turn something on oh yeah, I can't do it.

Ben Hammond: 51:36

if I'm, I about, I'm trying to think what do I like to do? I like to mow the lawn, that's about it. There you go, mow the lawn and sculpt.

Erik Nilsson: 51:45

Well, actually there's something else you like to do, so talk to me about how yoga came into the picture.

Ben Hammond: 51:51

Oh, yoga came into the picture because of sculpture. So I was lifting this super heavy. This is Okay. So it's a combination of Idaho farm boy slash sculpture. So this all comes full circle. So the Idaho farm boy can do anything physical Like will figure out a way to do something. So Blair had this second story storage space and I didn't want to bother him I didn't have anybody else working at the time and I have this mold that's probably about 140 pounds and I'm like I got to get this up there and I'm like I'm just going to get this ladder and just walk it up the ladder. Yeah, I can do this. So I do.

Ben Hammond: 52:35

I pick up this big mold. I'm like, okay, it was the horse's neck from the wagon master, the wagon train. Anyways, I'm picking it up and I'm just I'm going up about four or five steps and or five steps and all of a sudden it starts falling on one side. And of course I know, farm boy, you're not going to let that drop, you're going to get your butt kicked by your dad If you mess up or something like that. Or the farmer's going to get mad if you break the sprinkler pipe or whatever.

Ben Hammond: 52:57

So I'm just like, with all my might. I'm like, no, I'm going to pick it up. And I get it up and I'm just like, and all of a sudden I felt something in my back, just like, oh man, that hurts. So what do I do? I walk it the rest of the way up, put it on the shelf, I get back down and I'm like, oh man, my back feels weird, and just keep working. Finally, after about three months of my back just feeling weird, I go in and get an MRI and my doctor calls me up and he's like what the hell did you do? I'm like what?

Erik Nilsson: 53:28

Not a good thing to hear from your doctor.

Ben Hammond: 53:29

He's like it looks like World War III in your lumbar spine and I'm like, oh okay, what does that mean? And he's like you've destroyed three of your discs. And I'm just like, oh. He's like when did you do this? I'm like three months ago. And he's like do you need painkillers or anything? I'm like, no, I'm fine, it just feels uncomfortable. Anyways, so I get sent.

Ben Hammond: 53:54

They wanted to fuse my spine. I went to this chiropractor because I'm like I don't want a rod in my back, anyways, and the whole time I'm still working, I'm still lifting weights and stuff like that, just like whatever. I'm still working, I'm still lifting weights and stuff like that, just like whatever. So we used to get the newspaper like the Daily Herald I think it was the Provo newspaper and they had this crazy article about this guy and I'm sitting there watching him. He's like doing a handstand with his shirt off and he had gotten in a motorcycle wreck and became a paraplegic and he started doing yoga. They told him he'd never walk again. He started doing yoga and all of a sudden he got feeling back in his legs and was able to walk and he was like full recovery.

Ben Hammond: 54:37

And I've had a head injury when I was working construction. I fell two stories off a building, landed on my head, had some brain bleeding and stuff like that. A series of miracles mitigated that and I was able to. As my mom said, I had a new, bright, pleasant personality. That was the best part about it. But so I'd had head injuries. I had a spine injury because I'd also unbeknownst to me. I also broke my back when I fell, but I didn't find out about that until later.

Ben Hammond: 55:05

But anyways, I'm just reading this article and just the farm boy in me, instead of like doing some sort of surgery or something to fix it, I'm like, yeah, I think I can, I'm gonna start taking yoga. So I go up to the local rec center in american fork and it just so happens that this wonderful lady, lady lisa brown, teaches yoga. She's an amazing teacher. She's also a brain and spinal injury, of course, nurse, yeah. So I told her what happened and she's like you've come to the right place, we're gonna fix you.

Ben Hammond: 55:34

And I started taking taking yoga at the the chances of having this type of, not only in the medical field, but also the zen teacher that she is. She's taken workshops all over the country. She was amazing yoga teacher to have that combination right up the road from me, and I started taking yoga and after a year I felt I could do back bends. I felt not only recovered but better than I felt ever Dang. I just felt great, and so I just kept with it. And I still have a lot of residual pain, a lot of back pain. Sometimes it flares up pretty bad. Sometimes I do have to go in and get treatment from a doctor that I like, but for the most part, if I can stay active and doing my yoga, I feel fantastic.

Ben Hammond: 56:23

And it's just like and the interesting thing is Lisa, my teacher. Just like Blair, she was more like a mentor. She's like you need to start teaching yoga and I'm like I don't want to teach yoga. I'm like some chubby, hairy guy and she's like all the more reason Because we need to bring more men into yoga.

Erik Nilsson: 56:39

I agree.

Ben Hammond: 56:39

So I started teaching yoga, I got certified and stuff like that and I teach classes. So now Lisa and I we actually take turns, Take turns teaching it. We teach a free class. We teach two free classes every week. That's awesome. And we have a group of ladies. Still, every once in a while a couple guys will come, but for the most part it's a bunch of grandmas that can do handstands and push-ups and they're tough sons of guns. I mean, they're like end of days.

Ben Hammond: 57:03

That's the group of ladies you want to hang out with, because they are tougher than nails and you want to hang out with because they are tougher than nails and they're just awesome. A bunch of grandmas that can do more push-ups than their grandsons, that play football and stuff like that, like my boy that plays rugby and football, he'll come to. He doesn't like to come to yoga, he's like it's too hard. I hate it. All those ladies are way stronger than me. That's why you keep coming. Anyways. So that's how I got into yoga and how I got into teaching. I like to teach.

Ben Hammond: 57:29

I probably like teaching yoga more than I like teaching sculpture, because sculpture is frustrating, because people come not with baggage, but art's kind of funny for a lot of people. Like a lot of people aren't necessarily open to be molded. Like when I was up and coming, I wanted to get as much knowledge as I could and I'm like teach me, teach me, teach. I want to. I want to learn anything I can from you and I I've thought that I've gotten myself to a certain level of I don't know respect in the art world, where people, would you know, they're taking my workshop because they want to learn from me, but a lot of times when you're teaching art, a lot of people just want to pat on the back and that's not a fun way to teach. It's much more fun and enjoyable to teach like help people get better and if you're just there to kind of like Just hand out gold stars.

Erik Nilsson: 58:32

Yeah, hand out gold stars. It's just not very fun, no.

Ben Hammond: 58:34

And that's what I find with work. So a lot of people are like, oh, you teach workshops. I'm like, no, not anymore. I used to, but I just don't enjoy. Now someone comes in yoga. If you physically can't do it, it's like, okay, I can help you. This is what you're going to do. Here's a modification. And people are willing to do it, because I think yoga puts you in such a vulnerable spot that you're willing to accept any help. And not everyone approaches art learning with the same vulnerability, I think. But yoga keeps me humble too, because every time I think I'm pretty good at it, the same thing. I'll go take some workshop and I'm like, oh dang.

Erik Nilsson: 59:16

I thought I knew what I was doing.

Ben Hammond: 59:17

I thought I knew what I was sculpting Well, and then in the spiritual aspect of it, because even my yoga teacher, even as she's gotten older and slown down a little bit physically Not that she can't do anything she could do 20 years ago but she's gotten more into the breathing techniques, the pranayama, and that's where yoga masters really go, where you can go into the deep meditation and that really settling your mind and compartmentalizing all your you know, kind of the opposite of PTSD. Where PTSD is something where you can't compartmentalize thoughts and because you have some traumatic thing, it makes you unable to compartmentalize your thoughts and so you have these panic attacks and you have a hard time functioning. Where yoga, breathing does the opposite effect. It calms to the point where you get into that zen state and it's awesome, it's a fun place to go, but in a lot of ways it's a lot more challenging than to push yourself to do the physical things as to do the breathing and thinking and surrendering.

Erik Nilsson: 1:00:22

There's a lot more degrees of difficulty than just being able to hold a pose, yeah.

Ben Hammond: 1:00:26

It's like I always tell people at the end of class we've done some really hard things. I've gotten lots of grunts and moans, but it's like now we're going to lay on our back and shavasana and not do anything. And this is literally the hardest pose is to completely release. Can you completely release? And it's hard for me too, but it's awesome, but it's so fun because what it does is it keeps me humble, keeps me motivated, and it's just like uh sculpture. It keeps me humble and anytime I think I'm good, I'll, I'll be in the studio. When it's funny, I work really late sometimes and at two in the morning I'm pretty awesome. And I get up at eight and come back down here and I'm like what were you thinking? That looks, looks stupid.

Erik Nilsson: 1:01:08

Like you wasted three hours doing this. Let's fix this.

Ben Hammond: 1:01:11

Oh, one step forward, three steps back and once again it goes back to what I talked about the problem solving. Just the wonderful, the art of problem solving, and that's. We were at the doctor's today with my son. He had like a broken finger and I was thinking about even practicing medicine.

Ben Hammond: 1:01:30

Medicine has become so streamlined today that we've lost the art of medicine. It used to be one of the fine arts, like David McCullough's book, the American Journey to Paris. I love that because he follows politics, medicine, sculpture, art, painting and philosophy and how those used to be like all the liberal arts. Like medicine was in there and I was just like it made me kind of sad thinking about today, like all this insurance stuff and everything I'm like, does anyone here practice medicine? Like the art of medicine?

Ben Hammond: 1:02:06

And I've talked to many old doctors that just they bemoan the days of you know before everything became streamlined through insurance companies and what you can and can't do, and it's just like, yeah, we've lost our ability to problem solve on our own. Like, treat patients individually instead of as like, oh, here's what you do for this and that's it. Check out so different. So it's sad because some of our most intelligent human beings that's what they go into. They go into medicine and stuff like that Cause they're like well, I'm really smart, you can make money. Next thing you know they're just following a to-do list.

Erik Nilsson: 1:02:44

Red tape everywhere and everywhere.

Ben Hammond: 1:02:45

And then they're taking some sculpture workshop and they're like I really should have done something more artistic and I wish I would have. But I became a you know, a heart surgeon.

Erik Nilsson: 1:02:59

Yeah, you find out. You definitely find out eventually. But I guess, outside of yoga and sculpting, what else occupies your time or what do you like to do around? I?

Ben Hammond: 1:03:04

really I love, I love sports. I don't. I don't golf. My brother's a golfer. I golf and just cuss. So it's not very good for me because I don't know. I just have this expectation the ball should go where I want it to go, but I don't want to. I don't have the patience to, to learn something like that. Um, so yeah, I still. I still am involved in football cause it's kind of my job, you know. So I get to watch a lot of football. I'm finding I enjoy it less and less. Through the years. I've really gotten into rugby. As my son started playing rugby, I realized that rugby is the I love this sport. It's like such a fun sport to watch. This last year with the World Cup, we were in Fiji for the last two weeks of the World Cup. So to be in a, in a, you know, a rugby crazed nation, you know, was a lot more fun than watching it here and nobody knows what's.

Erik Nilsson: 1:03:56

Yeah it's going on another country.

Ben Hammond: 1:03:57

It's at the weird time of the day, so I was in brazil in 1998 when they were in the world cup final against france that they lost and it was just like to see an entire nation so passionate about a sport and you know it was cool. But soccer isn't something that I've always loved. I still enjoy watching it, but rugby definitely. In the last couple of years I've really become like I'm watching. I've got all the rugby pass, the like random apps and stuff like that Kerry's like what?

Ben Hammond: 1:04:26

is this for GameFlow? And I'm like, oh, it's the only place that shows reunion rugby, world rugby. Yeah, sorry, that's what I got to watch and yeah, so that's about it. And then, being a parent raising kids that's still the most challenging thing that I do. Arts sculpture is a walk in the park compared to trying to raise kids. Seriously, Jeez, Louise, Me and my wife we've been married for 25 years. I mean it has its ups and downs, like anything Like. Right now, my wife's just struggling terribly with her health and trying to figure out what it is and everything. I mean it's been and I mean it's frustrating for me. I can't imagine how frustrating it is for her, but those things stink. I don't know how to solve that. That I can't solve with hard work and dedication to my craft. It's one of those things where it's like all I can do and it's awesome, because this goes back to yoga, where it's about a surrender. All I can do is just love the people that are around me and do my best to serve and love them.

Erik Nilsson: 1:05:37

Not that.

Ben Hammond: 1:05:38

I'm perfect at it or even good, but if I can be mediocre at it, then I'm going to keep working at it. But that's the real challenge of life. Being in the studio is actually a relief. I mean, I'm like I'm doing what I love, I'm problem solving all day, so it keeps me engaged. There's never I never feel bored at work. People talk about the monotony of their job. I'm like, oh my gosh, I can't even imagine that kind of sounds nice.

Erik Nilsson: 1:06:06

Sometimes, like every day is different.

Ben Hammond: 1:06:12

Well, it's funny because I still do a lot of the things that other artists don't Like. I make my own molds. It's cathartic for me to like mold the piece after I'm finished working on it, to paint silicone rubber over the whole thing and put plaster on top of it and, you know, bugger it up and damage it through the process of making a mold of it. And people are like why do you make your own molds? And I'm like. They're like is it to save money? And I'm like no, I just do it because it's monotonous, it's something that I. It has a start and an end and then you're done and I'm like it's physical and it's.

Erik Nilsson: 1:06:48

You know, I like doing that because it's something that's easy in a lot of ways, yeah, especially after going through something that's very like not processed very ambiguous, very abstract.

Ben Hammond: 1:06:54

Well, yeah, and when you're creating artwork, you don't ever finish it, you abandon it, and I used to think like, oh, that's just the corniest thing that all artists say. But it's true, you, literally. That's why I like to work on the mold. I'm like I'm painting rubber on this, I can't touch the clay anymore, I can't change something. And it's funny when I'm making my own mold, I'm to the point where I have a sculpture tool in one hand and a paint brush in the other where I'm painting the rubber on. I'm like, okay, leave it alone, hammond, just let it go. Yeah, you're done. It's like right now, getting my studio organized, building a wood shop. I've been building cabinets for the last couple of days with my helper and sometimes it's nice to do yeah, just do something different.

Erik Nilsson: 1:07:37

I was going to say do something with your hands, but you always do something with your hands.

Ben Hammond: 1:07:41

Well, you saw me putting the CBD oil on because I was doing so much with my hands that they're getting a little inflamed, so I had to calm that down a little bit.

Erik Nilsson: 1:07:47

Thanks, yeah, hands that they're getting a little inflamed, so I had to calm that down a little bit, thank, yeah, I can't imagine like I've had family that have been like massage therapists and like they're like, oh, my hands hurt, like I can't really do this anymore and I can't imagine how I don't know, it's curious, yeah, pushing clay all day I'll tell you one thing what I can do is, if my boys act up, I can grab them by the neck and squeeze a little bit and they feel like they've been lashed by some sort of machine or something like that.

Ben Hammond: 1:08:15

Strong hands yeah, these hands. I wish I had hands like this when I wrestled in high school. You would have been state champ man growing up in Southeast Idaho. I hated when you were at a wrestling match and within two seconds you knew whether that guy milked cows by hand. Like as soon as he grabs your wrist or something you're just like oh crap. I'm dead this guy is like I'm like I milked cows a couple times because my dad felt it was important that we milked a cow by hand.

Erik Nilsson: 1:08:47

Part of the checklist of Idaho? Yeah, but oh my gosh, it was important that we milked a cow by hand Part of the checklist of Idaho.

Ben Hammond: 1:08:50

Yeah, but oh my gosh, that was the worst. Like, oh my heck, this dude wakes up every morning at 5.30 and milks two cows and I'm going to get thrown around by this guy, don't blame it at all. Shoot.

Erik Nilsson: 1:09:03

Well, Ben, I want to end with the two questions I always ask every guest.

Ben Hammond: 1:09:10

First, if you could have someone on the podcast and hear about their story.

Erik Nilsson: 1:09:22

Who do you think you'd want to hear from? Someone from Utah From Utah lives here someone who has a cool story anything and everything.

Ben Hammond: 1:09:27

You know, there's some one of the most interesting people I'd say, matt Harper. Matt Harper, he grew up in Blackfoot, idaho. He called me up like years ago and just, his wife's an artist, so we've always been kind of run into each other because of art things. And he calls me up, he's like, hey, you want to go to lunch? And I'm like sure, yeah, I'll go to lunch. I'm like sure, yeah, I'll go to lunch.

Erik Nilsson: 1:09:50

And I was like man, is he trying to network or what's?

Ben Hammond: 1:09:52

going on, you know, because we weren't like. We grew up in the same area, we weren't necessarily friends, we were more had like friends who were friends. Um, and we were going out to, to, to lunch, and I'm like what's, what's up? And he's just like, oh, I just needed to visit with somebody else from Idaho and I'm just like, okay, that's awesome. So we've gotten to be friends over the years.

Ben Hammond: 1:10:14

He's actually the one that built this addition onto my studio. Oh, interesting, and he's one of the most fascinating people. He's really sharp. He has like a. He was doing a PhD in geology. He still works as a. What do they call it when you hire somebody to come and give advice? Why can't I think of it? Consulting, consulting. Yeah, he still does some consulting for some geological things, for companies and stuff like that. But super smart guy. But just real interesting story how he got to now he's building custom homes and built an artist studio and he does great craftsmanship and he's just a guy that grew up, like I did, in southeast idaho and now he's living in utah and he's a successful contractor and, like I said, builds really beautiful high-end homes and stuff like that. That's awesome. Yeah, in fact, he, he was excited to do the studio because he's like, finally I can just build a box. He's fact. He was excited to do the studio because he's like, finally I can just build a box.

Erik Nilsson: 1:11:10

He's like I don't have to do anything else, I don't have to do a kitchen, I don't have to pick out marble or anything.

Ben Hammond: 1:11:15

It's just like it's straightforward. But you know I gave him enough twists and turns that he still had some challenges and things like that. There, just, I'm always interested in builders. I've just. Maybe it's because of the way I grew up, but he's an interesting fellow and married to a painter, successful painter. I love that.

Erik Nilsson: 1:11:36

And then, if anybody wants to find more about you, your art, where's the best place to find that?

Ben Hammond: 1:11:44

I don't Google me, I guess that works. Don't google me, I guess that works. The uh, I am terrible at social media but I post. Most often when I do post on instagram at ben hammond fine art, um, I have my website benhammondfineartcom and then you can google things. Ben hammond, hall of fame. Sometimes there's videos that pop up on youtube of guys sitting for me.

Erik Nilsson: 1:12:08

Usually, uh, they'll they'll kind of film that process, um, but yeah, I don't know otherwise, go to your local foundry, try to find him, and then you go you can probably knock on my door.

Ben Hammond: 1:12:21

If you bring like a whatchamacallit candy bar, I'll let you in the rite of passage. Yeah, that's uh, that's what I love.

Erik Nilsson: 1:12:28

it's a good whatchamacallit Noted because I can't think of a single other person I know that loves a watchamacallit so more for you.

Ben Hammond: 1:12:36

Oh man, one of my funny stories just to end is speaking of watchamacallit is Orlando Pace. He's a big, huge guy with a beard right there, one of the biggest men I've ever hung out with. So he came out to pose for his sculpture and we went to lunch at the Wing Shack Usually Wing Shack's, one of my favorite places to bring football players.

Erik Nilsson: 1:12:57

Me and John went there last time.

Ben Hammond: 1:12:58

Oh, I love the Wing Shack. So, anyways, we go to the Wing Shack, we get wings and we've eaten enough that most people are full. And I'm I tell orlando, I'm like I gotta run over to the set they used to have a 7-eleven next to it and I'm like I gotta go grab a couple whatchamacallits. You want a candy bar. And he's like he's like you're gonna eat a candy bar after we had all those wings. I'm like I need some chocolate to settle my stomach. He's just like he laughed about that. He's just like, yeah, give me a whatchamacallit, we have Whatchamacallit.

Erik Nilsson: 1:13:27

So he's like that does taste good after and I'm like you're darn right Told you.

Ben Hammond: 1:13:32

And then on the way home, I'm taking him back to the airport and he's like is that an In-N-Out? And I'm like yeah. And he's like, oh man, I'd love to stop and get an In-N-Out. I'm like let him to the airport. The next time I see him is like 2017. We're out in Canton and Jerry Jones is having his big party. I wasn't invited, but Orlando was. Orlando sees me in the hotel. He's like, hey, Ben, come here. And he's like I'm like what's up Orlando? And he's like his wife's with him. He's like this is Ben.

Ben Hammond: 1:14:03

This guy can eat as much as I can. And he taught me about whatchamacallits and eating chocolate after you have a heavy. He's like it's the best thing to settle your stomach, isn't it? I'm like, yeah and anyways. So we were laughing about that. And he's like you going to Jerry's party? And I'm like, no, I didn't get invited. And he's like come with me. So, because I ate a whatchamacallit after wings, it got me into this private party at Jerry Jones and I've never been to anything like that since or before. But, holy cow, that dude knows how to throw a party. It was pretty awesome. Private concert Justin Timberlake it was crazy and I've never listened to Justin Timberlake before or after, but that was sweet, but that night was amazing.

Erik Nilsson: 1:14:43

It was pretty cool. So there you go. Never underestimate the power of a Watch McCall.

Ben Hammond: 1:14:49

Oh yeah, or eating like I eat too much probably, but anyways it impressed Orlando Pace, that's all I got to say it sounds like a word for me.

Erik Nilsson: 1:14:58

Well, thanks again, ben, for having me, especially in your studio. It's always such a fun place, because sculpturing studios are by far the best. Yeah, we all know that. Awesome. Well, thanks, man.

Ben Hammond: 1:15:08

All right.

Erik Nilsson: 1:15:08

It's so funny Cause I had heard who I can't remember who told me the story about the back and yoga Someone did in passing, it might've been Howard, actually Like what, and he's like oh yeah, you're going to have to ask him, yeah.

Ben Hammond: 1:15:22

Howard used to come to some of my yoga classes. He's just like, oh, like I can't do any of it, and I'm just like that's why I'm here. Do I unplug this? No? I'll take care of it Okay, yeah, that's I know One thing.