Ben Henderson has soared enough of the sparkling sky to pick out the stars of highest importance—mental health over stardom, family over fame, and art that is slow in the making.
If you have gone downtown for any of life’s simple delights—grabbed a coffee or pastry, sipped a beer while DJs spun vinyl, bought tickets to the jazz festival, joined a bike party, or booed a performer off the stage at the Go Go Gone Show—chances are you showed up because you saw Ben Henderson’s artwork.
A painter and designer by trade, Ben’s collective resume of posters, signs, and murals tell a unique history of the ways we gather in the South Bay. His custom designs welcome both first-timers and old-comers to the unique atmospheres of Park Station Hashery, Chromatic Coffee, O’Flaherty’s Irish Pub, and SoFA Market. From an elegant reproduction of Hotel De Anza’s famous Diving Diva on its windows, to the vintage lettering on Palo Alto Fine Wine & Spirits; from the hip facade of Good Karma Artisan Ales & Cafe, to the cherry-red exterior of Sweetdragon Baking Company, Ben’s handiwork identifies cherished local businesses and brightens the streets they occupy.
In 2017, Ben started Brush House, a catchall name for projects that he was increasingly sharing with other artists as they scaled in size and overlapped in timelines. As he continued to direct designs, he brought in team members who could also achieve that remarkably clean line, such as Andrew Sumner and J.Duh.
Ben was the type of boy who grew up drawing whatever, whenever he could. “I especially loved drawing logos of all my favorite heavy metal bands—just blowing through a stack of computer paper with the little dots in the edges.” He put full effort into displays for his class assignments and enjoyed afternoons drawing Simpsons characters alongside his older brothers.
From any angle, Brush House seems like a dream business for the kid who took his first “commissions” from admiring elementary school classmates. “I was actually getting made fun of quite a bit for my weight and other things,” he shares, “so being able to shine with art and get praise and acceptance from my fellow classmates and teachers—I’ve always been drawn to [art] for so many reasons.”
But by middle school, he found himself devoting hours to playing guitar or jamming on drums and bass. “I was always such a ham, and I wanted to perform for my friends, my family, my community,” he says.
In this way, music became the impetus of his artwork. “I was making a ton of graphics in the way of band merch and promotion for my band and my friends’ bands,” he recalls. Between playing with one of his first bands, Delta Activity, and working at Coffee Society, he took on his first gig as a graphic designer.
Funny enough, that commissioned art piece traveled the world before his music did. While touring with newer band Good Hustle, Ben spotted his “Make Coffee Not War” design, modeled after a wartime propaganda poster, on a T-shirt he didn’t recall printing. He asked the wearer how she’d gotten it. “She’s like, ‘I just ordered it from some guy in Australia.’ ” His poster had risen into paper virality, appearing in bastardized versions of itself on T-shirts, mugs, and wall decals sold globally.
And not soon after, his music followed. Ben’s first band, Delta Activity, toured with alternative metal band Dredg. His duo, Brother Grand, supported indie-folk band the Wild Reeds. In 2012, Ben quit a job designing graphics for the county to join a nationwide tour with indie rock band River City Extension as their bass player.
For 15 years, Ben’s music career was on constant rise, as he and his bands accepted invitations to play bigger shows, festivals, and tours. In his life’s nebula, performing was at the center—stardom was likely, but it meant having to endure the collapse in other parts of his life. And some of it couldn’t be earned back.
“I realized that being out on tour as much as I was, I was missing weddings, funerals, birthday parties, baby showers—all for people I really love and care about.” Additionally, the economic demands of performing had changed the experience for him. Whereas he once reveled in the endless possibilities of one line in one song, his mind was now more of a calculator. He habitually concerned himself with what the next concert would pay or how the band’s merch would sell.
And he wasn’t alone in the anxieties. From his vantage point, Ben noticed the struggles of even more established performers with record labels, booking agents, and sponsorships. “They were struggling to pay their bills, take care of their health, be happy, be satisfied, and grateful,” he says. “I realized, it’s going to take me a long time to get where they are. And they’re not even stoked.”
The joy of live performance dwindled. “People could come up to me after a show in tears and be like, ‘That was so amazing. Never stop what you’re doing. You touched so many people’s hearts tonight,’ and inside I would just feel like, ‘I wish you were right.’ ” It was a far cry from the way he played music through junior and high school, jamming for hours on guitar, every single day, hopping from drums, to bass, to the mic, all because it was fun and brought people together.
So Ben made a deal with himself. “I said, ‘For the next year, I’m going to focus on art only.’ ” The commitment was quiet—Ben told no one—but the change was clear: he simply stopped performing in public. He turned down shows and put all the touring and recording on hiatus.
Only a few weeks in, he realized it was the best decision. “For the first time in a while my bills were paid. I was not falling behind. I was getting so much done.” Ben soaked it all in: time with the people he loved, space to reflect on his relationships, and the inner peace that a younger version of himself lacked. “It took me identifying my values,” he explains. “Before, I didn’t have any of that. It was just like, whatever the next biggest thing is, that’s what I wanted.” Those closest to him—especially his wife, Erin—share his values of health, family, and friends. “We’re just remarkably mellow and happy together,” he says.
Freed from the need for his musicianship to generate money or sense of self-worth, Ben states, “I have reclaimed my music as my fine art.” It looks like coming right back to the beginning, when he composed without an agenda. “I will sit there and play with one song idea for months on end, overly obsessing about the minutiae of one song—because I’m allowed to, and because I allow myself to. And that’s exciting,” he says.
That’s fantastic news for anyone who’s heard Ben perform, whether 20 years ago or just last month on a stage somewhere downtown. He’s also planning to record this winter. We can look forward to definitive versions of beloved Ben Henderson classics, as well as newer experiments reflecting this phase of his life. “I’m going to be still performing whenever I want, whenever I can, and have fun with it,” he promises himself, “and be relentlessly creative and experimental with it because I can and because I should.”
Don Hardy is an award-winning filmmaker known for his powerful documentaries that shed light on diverse societal topics. As a director, producer, and cinematographer, Hardy has worked on impactful films such as Citizen Penn, Linda Perry: Let It Die Here, and most recently, Bar. His cinematography explores themes of resilience, social justice, and the human experience, earning him six regional Emmys and significant film festival awards from Cinequest, Woods Hole Film Festival, Seattle International Film Festival, and Sonoma International Film Festival. Hardy’s career has been defined by following dreams, taking risks, and making connections. His documentaries reflect a deep desire to understand human experiences and share complex, nuanced stories that might otherwise go untold.
Hardy Grew up in Upstate New York, in a household where the news was always on the television. He had an early interest in journalism, which led him to do radio in high school before getting his foot in the door at a local TV station, typing stories in a teleprompter. Hardy followed jobs in TV, from sports in South Florida to NBC in San Jose, California. The connections he made along the way and his acquired approach to elevating news storytelling through artful, character-driven narratives helped propel his career toward film. He found a like-minded storyteller in former NBC journalist Dana Nachman when they collaborated on their 2002 television documentary, Close to Home. The duo would go on to produce five more independent documentary feature films.
Hardy’s latest film, Bar, will premiere at the California Theater in Downtown San Jose on March 14 and 23 as part of the 2025 Cinequest Film Festival. Bar was filmed on-site during a five-day intensive bartending training program at the Culinary Institute of America in New York City. Graduates of this program have gone on to run top bars and spirits brands and lead the non-alcoholic beverage revolution. The film provides insight into the hospitality industry by focusing on five main characters in the high-pressure environment of learning complex skills.
In this conversation, award-winning filmmaker Don Hardy discusses his journey to following his dreams, his connections throughout his career, and the Cinequest world premiere of his newest film, Bar.
Join Don Hardy at the Cinequest Film Festival for the world premiere of Bar, and stick around after the showing for an in-person Q&A session.
“As an artist, I feel the responsibility to speak to the lived experiences, personal and collective memories, and to become the voice of one’s time.”
Artist Xiaoze Xie is known for his hyperrealistic, large-scale paintings—many of them more than 6,080 square feet–taken from scenes of everyday life, and often depicting images of books: worn, tattered pages, libraries full of dusty tomes, shelves, and stacks of paper. These images are striking in both scale and detail, causing viewers to reflect on our shared humanity, our past and present, and the beauty inherent in things we often overlook.
Xie grew up in a rural area in the Guangdong Province of China. He was always interested in art and drawing, often copying illustrations he saw in books. An early inspirational moment stands out to him from childhood: while he and his father visited an artist named Huang Zhi, Xie watched him grab a sketchbook and capture an image of his father in moments with just a few strokes of the pencil. Zhi suggested Xie try to draw from life rather than copy illustrations. “This was my first, and perhaps the only serious art lesson in my childhood,” Xie recalls.
Xie’s initial career path leaned toward architecture, which he studied in Beijing; but soon after he earned his architecture degree, the itch of painting took over, and he changed course. He took a graduate program in art in Beijing before moving to the US, where he earned an MFA at the University of North Texas in 1996.
“Most of my paintings are large, realistic, and with a reference to photography,” he says. “Many people who only saw reproduced images of my work often recognized the photographic aspect while overlooking the nuanced painterly treatments, such as the layers of color and texture, and brushwork. A painting is not just an image, it is also an object with a sense of scale, weight and touch, an object that invites our physical involvement.”
The large-scale canvases bring visual impact to each of his images, allowing for details and textures that keep the eye lingering on a painting for far longer than it might on the photographs the paintings reference or on smaller-sized works. The result gives what are often ordinary-looking scenes a feeling of importance and power.
After experimenting with different subjects for his paintings, books became a frequent part of his works starting in the early 1990s. “I was fascinated by both the potential meanings and forms of the subject,” he says. “For me, books are the material form of something abstract, such as thoughts, memory, and history. Over the years, I have painted Western volumes, Chinese thread-bound books, museum library collections, and eventually newspapers. I see this ongoing body of works as one project growing out of a simple idea.”
While exploring these books and libraries, he also became captivated by the topic of banned books—what they mean, the political circumstances around a given book, and what these bans have meant for our history and collective understanding of the world. His many paintings of books and libraries fed into this fascination. “As I continued to paint books,” he explains, “I was also interested in what people have done to books. I have made installations based on specific historic events of book destruction. All these led to the project on the history of banned books in China. The books in my Chinese Library paintings are all closed and stacked; however, in the photographs of banned books, their pages open for the first time. The pursuit of freedom of expression often comes at a cost, and should not be taken for granted.”
All of this speaks to Xie’s interest in using his art to explore the shared history of modern society. “As an artist, I feel the responsibility to speak to the lived experiences, personal and collective memories, and to become the voice of one’s time. The juxtaposition of historical and modern styles, and images from the past and the present have opened new possibilities.”
Today, in addition to his wide range of gallery exhibitions, he teaches art at Stanford, where he is not only able to mentor young artists, but also find inspiration in their work and ideas. “I love working with MFA graduate students. It is always exciting to learn about their innovative ideas and watch the development—sometimes radical changes—of their work.”
“Looking back, you realize that life is full of dilemmas and detours, and it takes a long time to figure out what you really want to do,” he muses. Ultimately, where Xie has landed is exactly where the artist Huang Zhi pointed him when he was a boy: capturing images from life. He’s done it in large scale, with impeccable detail, and has had the opportunity to share his work with the world.
