Publication Date: Friday, November 21, 2003



A glass act
Artist Dean Bensen draws inspiration from nature's finest

by Sue Dremann

Vitality bursts from glass blower Dean Bensen.

He's passionate about things that are intense and challenging, things that have a strong element of physicality. Tall, handsome and athletic, the gentle 37-year-old Menlo Park artist started out as an avid ski racer. That passion led him to move from the Bay Area to Ketcham, Idaho, where he planned to race and study forestry. But along the way, he found glass blowing. It became the medium for the expression of his passion for the outdoors.

Glass blowing also provided challenges not unlike those experienced in his beloved sport. As in ski racing, glass blowing is not a craft for the faint-hearted. It's easy to wipe out -- the slightest vibration can send a work crashing to the floor, he said.

But Bensen loves the risk and supports himself solely from sales of his art. Colorful one-of-a-kind vessels -- from large, shimmering and speckled, to small Italianate forms in twisted candy-cane stripes -- are his bread-and-butter. He produces several hundred pieces a year, which are sold through a number of California galleries, including the Pacific Art League in Palo Alto. In addition, he hosts biannual sales at his parents' home in Palo Alto. The next open house and sale will be held this weekend.

Glass redwood trees have become Bensen's signature creation, his personal vision in concrete form to share with the world. The trees stand up to two feet tall. They range in price from $375 for an individual tree to $2,500 for a small grove. Last year, he blew glass trees for Palo Alto's Tall Tree awards.

"You can do anything you want with glass, from making vessels to redwood trees," he said.

Attracted by the colors, fluidity and "constant change," of glass blowing, Bensen was turned on to glass when his college roommate introduced him to the art. Once he tried it, he was hooked.

He studied glass blowing at the College of Idaho, receiving a degree in art in 1990. He went on to apprentice at a glass studio in Sun Valley, Idaho.

Seven years later, Bensen returned to the Bay Area and worked in local studios, teaching at San Jose State University and volunteer teaching at Palo Alto High School. He now owns Dean Bensen Glass Designs.

Bensen drew his first inspiration for glass tree design from looking at old growth trees during a visit to the Sequoia National Forest in the mid-1990s. The glass works are his homage to the awe inspired by ancient redwoods and the spiritual intersection between people and nature, he said. Despite their monumental size, most people tend to pass by the ancient trees, and by nature in general.

"I wanted to take my love for nature and create awareness of the things we take for granted," he said.

Ultimately, Bensen would like to sell a collection of his tree sculptures and give away redwood or sequoia tree seedlings. He has even collected the reddish oatmeal-like seeds and has successfully grown three seedlings. Redwood seeds are notoriously difficult to germinate, he said.

"I compare trees to human life. We go through a growing process. Sometimes we make it, sometimes we don't. I'm trying to create something of vision -- an awareness of a natural history -- and bring it to the viewer in a different kind of light."

Bensen's strong sense of awareness and spirituality was influenced by his mother, a hypnotherapist, who is also the chaplain at her church. His father is an engineer.

"My own spiritualness [sic] comes from nature," he said.

The glass trees are hybrids, incorporating traits of both the coastal redwoods of the Bay Area and northern California and the giant sequoia groves of the Sierras. Creating them is an evolutionary process. He's developed a number of tree styles as a result, he said.

The earliest is a style he called his "new growth series." Melted glass is dropped onto the tree trunk-like dripped candle wax, then manipulated into its final desired form. A second style utilizes shards of colored glass heated and attached to the main trunk in layers, creating a more scalloped effect. Bits of glass are also crimped and pulled.

Glass "frit," roughly tumbled glass pebbles, are also gathered up on a molten base, sticking together in layers, which Bensen slowly builds into the green canopy of leaves for his third tree style. The shimmering bits of glass catch the light, giving the tree a sparkling, jewel-like aura.

Bensen bounces between Guerrero Glass studios in Alameda, and Public Glass in San Francisco. He blows glass 10 hours each week -- adding an extra day when he can -- and helps other artists. He could work 60 hours a week blowing glass, but for the physical demands of the art. Glass artisans ply their art in temperatures over 2,000 degrees, working for up to six hours at a time. Three and a half hours of profuse sweat and concentration can be shattered in an instant if everything doesn't go right.

"I try not to get attached to the work," he said.

Bensen blends his own colors of glass to achieve that definitive redwood hue. Trunks are formed in a striated mold, giving the bark its characteristic furrowed look. The trees are solid glass, necessitating many technical considerations, he said.

As the thick glass begins its cooling cycle -- at 920 to 950 degrees Fahrenheit -- the work must be cooled slowly, to relieve stress that would crack the glass.

In the future, Bensen would like to obtain a public commission, possibly to create a larger tree work that could be blown in sections, and relative in size to the environment where they'd be exhibited. When he can provoke in the viewer a sense of joy and beauty, then he's successful.


Info: Call (650) 787-2647 or visit www.deanbensen.com