 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
J |
|
Ben Taylor |
Biography: J Born and raised north of Boston you could say I was a part of the normal family situation of our times. My parents were divorced, and I was raised on a whole lot of television. From the beginning, I struggled through and hated school, mostly because of having learning disabilities. Not being a very creative child, and having no talent to speak of, it seemed to me this world had little or no expectation of me.
Art didn’t come into my life until l was about seventeen years old. When I think back to that moment, it seems as though it was the first time in my schooling that someone had told I had done something good, and I shared this feeling. That one moment flipped the switch, and turned me onto life. Finally, I had direction. I decided I was going to be an artist. Taking photos and making all sorts of collages, the art teachers in my school gave me lots of positive feedback. This opened the floodgates of creativity for me. Most of my thanks goes to those teachers who had finally inspired and encouraged me with positive reinforcement.
After finishing my high school education, it seemed like art school would be my next step in life. I didn’t like these formal classes for long all because all I wanted was to create my art and not do random assignments that would be judged unworthy. I had enough of that crap in high school. It didn’t take long before I dropped out of art school.
This was the lowest point in my life. I had no direction, no purpose. I could have truly cared less if I had lived, or if I had died. My friend said if I didn’t care about living, “then give my life to art”. He told me I needed to start doing real art. I needed to draw and paint. I told him I couldn’t draw or paint, and that every time I tried to create something it turned out awful. He said to me, “Don’t try to make anything. Just draw or paint, and if you see anything there, emphasize it, and try to bring it out”. Every moment that I had, I started to draw. The people around me encouraged me, even though what I did was pretty much a scribble. Then I started to paint and my friends continued to spur me on.
Art picked me up off the bottom, not just healing me, but it made me a master of my own domain. When I did my art, it was my world, and I kicked ass. I traveled this path for seven years before I had my awakening about what it was that I was actually doing, what it was that I was tapping into. Since then I’ve spent the last six years mastering my skills, contemplating art, life, and reality. I’ve been doodling for about thirteen years now and, let’s just say, I’ve done a lot of pondering. I hope you enjoy my art, my message to the world, and my personal visions.
Not being confined to just physical art, I also play guitar, hand-drums, and dj techno and tech-house music. Since I was a teen, I’ve been into skateboarding and snowboarding. Dancing is a passion, and through dance I can truly express the energy and forces that reside in this universe and resonate through me. I love getting down with nature and mother earth, hiking, biking, camping, swimming, fishing, and just chilling at any head-stash spot deep in the woods or on the water. One of my future goals in the next two and half year is to produce a music album called Space Odyssey 2010, be prepared to board the mother ship.
Biography: Ben Taylor Some moments last forever, but life flies by. Oxymorons like this have been a part of my existence since being born in Waterbury, Connecticut on a sweltering morning, July 8th 1974. This birth made me, for better or for worse, a Cancer with Leo rising and a Pisces moon. Fire and Water, these attributes of being an emotional leader would be a blessing and curse that I struggle with to this day.
As an adolescent the wrapper to my candy was pretty normal. There was swim team in the summers, getting laughed at for being different and a bookworm during my years at Catholic School, playing army in the woods with my friends, going on camping trips, many fun and memorable times with my family, and from the beginning, getting into every sort of trouble possible. Curious George was one of my favorite book characters along with Peter Rabbit, and James with his giant peach. These were adventurers, and I knew I that I had to explore the world and get a taste of all it had to offer, good and bad.
As a young teen my passion for reading led me into the realm of fantasy. Here, I could become friends with the characters and join them on their quests, but I wanted my own odysseys. By my mid-teens rebellion began to boil in my blood and I entered a period of my life full of getting into trouble, the discovery of girls, and experimentation of all sorts. These things usually don’t have a happy ending for a teen, and I soon found myself leaving high school, being a ragamuffin soul spirit, following the Grateful Dead, and then wandering off to see what life on the road was all about. In searching for the answer to life I learned to listen to those who loved me most, and that family and friends are amongst the most precious things we can ever have.
A journey like this, in my younger years, had its ups and downs. I wanted to see the world, but had not developed the material, mental, or emotional foundation to get to the Shangri-La I was looking for.
In my early twenties I worked as a cook, took people backpacking, tried out agricultural school, and worked on a farm. It was at this time, drifting through life, that I was offered a glassblowing apprenticeship. There was no resisting learning to create with a mysterious and inspiring medium. Within a year, I had established a small studio in Western Massachusetts, and slowly, but surely, thrived in my craft. I also found myself moving into the world of material success for the first time.
With more time to explore my interests, I began to dj atmospheric drum and bass, jungle, and downtempo music. Lucky to be personally exposed to many of the worlds’ greatest electronic musicians, I soon blossomed. Starting a record label and cd duplication company, I found myself on debaucherous journeys throughout North American and Mexico playing music, traveling to big cities and festivals, but best of all meeting people with perspectives on life I had never imagined. My mid-twenties brought about some incredibly close friends, and I journeyed to exotic places like Cuba, Panama, Costa Rica, and, on a vision quest that took me on a fourteen thousand mile road-trip around Canada with my dog and kayak.
Over the next two years I decided that it was time for a geographical change and moved to Los Angeles. In the City of Angels I turned into the true Renaissance Man. Through a four year period I worked for a television show, opened a glassblowing school, headed up marketing for a major dvd series and became a veterinary technician. The warmth and energy of Southern California made my soul vibrate, but in the summer of 2006, a whirlwind of circumstances suddenly spun me back to the East Coast. I knew that the sunshine and cloudless skies of the West would be awaiting my return.
While spending time with my family and seeing old friends, I got a job as an intensive care unit technician at an animal hospital. Soon I reunited with Jason Tremblay, a friend of about a decade who lived in Maine. When we started throwing around ideas about what we wanted to accomplish Jay and I saw that our paths had converged and Team Space Pirate came to be.
Many of the lessons I have learned seem to be synthesizing, yet I often make the same mistakes. Now, I have learned to forgive myself, and move on. My cup is always half full. I take time to enjoy life by occasionally watching sunrises, walking with my dog, reading good books, spending quality time with those I love, and enjoying delicious food every chance I get. Watching the evolution of events in the world is one of my passions. Most of all, I am trying to reach my arms up to the sky, shine, and help share the vision I have had of how wonderful life, and the beyond, can be.