Bio for Jonathan Benson

I come from a long line of people involved in the arts and crafts. My great grandfather was a cabinet maker and his brother was a violin maker. My grandfather was a jeweler. My mother, Martha Benson, is a jewelry artist. She was the cofounder and director of a community arts center, the Octagon Center for the Arts, in Ames, Iowa, where I was raised. Martha organized many national craft exhibits at the Octagon while I was growing up. I worked there packing and unpacking exhibits and helped host opening receptions, which were attended by many known and emerging artists, who are now leaders in their fields.

After graduating from high school, I moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where I worked making Taos-style furniture. At that time I first became interested in the arts of the southwest and in particular it's geometric abstraction. I was also moved by the landscape and geology of this region and still use them as inspiration for my designs. At this time I knew that I wanted to be a furniture maker, but I realized I needed more artistic training.

I returned to Iowa to get a Bachelor's degree in Art at Iowa State University, studying furniture design under Michael Chinn. I then attended the Rhode Island School of Design, where I studied with Tage Frid, Rosanne Somerson and John Dunnigan. It was here that I developed what would become the basis of my designs today. I began to combine bent wood and turned elements to create designs that portrayed movement. My interest in motion led me to futurist and cubist painting. I was fascinated by how they used motion for subject matter, and how they expressed it. I began to incorporate these ideas into my own work and my style began to emerge. I received a Master of Fine Arts in Furniture Design there in 1986.

After graduating from RISD, I began to show my work at galleries around the U.S. I returned to Ames and taught art and furniture design at ISU. After that I taught furniture design at the Genoa School of Arts and Crafts in Genoa, New York. In 1996, I moved to Alexandria, Virginia. As I began to focus more on turning, I discovered burls and started to incorporate them into my designs. I also began to look to the materials themselves for inspiration.

I currently live in West Des Moines, Iowa where I maintain my studio. My current influences include the art and landscape of the southwestern and central U.S., cubist and futurist painting, contemporary sculpture and the materials I work with. I divide my time between pursuing new ideas and filling orders in the studio and publishing.