Meet Your Maker: Ben Beres, Marbling Artist and Printmaker
Ben Beres has been making things for over two decades, and he still can't quite explain what he does in a single sentence. Printmaker, professor at Cornish, co-founder of Mini Mart City Park (a Georgetown gas station turned community arts space, 15 years in the making), and one-third of the art collective SuttonBeresCuller for over 20 years. Ben recently studied with master printers in Istanbul, studying the ancient art of Ebru (Turkish paper marbling).
This August, he's bringing this art, one of the oldest printmaking techniques on earth, to Mischief & Makers Camp.
The Long Version
Ben is a Seattle-based artist and professor of printmaking at Cornish College of the Arts. He's been teaching there for years, and he also teaches vitreography (printing with glass plates) at Pilchuck Glass School, which is about as niche and fascinating as it sounds.
Outside the classroom, he's one-third of SuttonBeresCuller, a collaborative trio that's spent over two decades bouncing between experimental guerrilla art projects and high-end commercial commissions. They've shown work in galleries, performed in the streets, and built installations that blur every line between art and public life. If you've spent time in Seattle's art scene, you've probably crossed paths with their work whether you knew it or not.
And then there's Mini Mart City Park, a project Ben co-founded in Georgetown. It started as an abandoned gas station on contaminated soil. Now it's a pocket park, cultural center, and community gathering space with a built-in soil remediation system that's literally cleaning the earth underneath it while hosting art crawls and neighborhood events. It took 15 years to bring to life. That tells you something about how Ben thinks about art and what it's for.
How He Landed on Marbling
For someone who's worked in copper etching, glass printing, sculpture, and performance art, paper marbling might seem like a left turn. But for Ben, it's the opposite. His recent work combines traditional marbling techniques with printmaking processes in ways that nobody else is really doing.
He recently traveled to Istanbul to study with master Ebru printers, learning the history, materials, and techniques of a craft that UNESCO recognizes as intangible cultural heritage. Ebru (Turkish paper marbling) has been practiced for centuries. You float pigments on the surface of a thickened liquid bath, manipulate them with combs and styluses into swirling patterns, and then lay a sheet of paper on top to capture the design.
It's part chemistry, part painting, part controlled accident. And it happens fast.
The Workshop: Ebru (Turkish Paper Marbling)
This is a two-hour workshop where you'll paint directly on the surface of water and transfer your designs to paper. Ben will walk you through the basics of floating pigments, shaping patterns, and pulling prints.
The pace is fast, loose, and experimental. You're not laboring over one precious piece. You're working quickly, trying things, and printing over and over. Expect to leave with 10 to 20 unique prints, depending on how fast you move and how deep your curiosity runs.
Every single print will be different. That's not a selling point, it's just physics. The pigments move, the patterns shift, and no two pulls are ever the same. Some will surprise you. Some will be better than anything you planned. That's the whole game.
No experience needed. If you can hold a comb and drop paint on water, you're qualified.
Why This One's Special
Most of the workshops at camp are about slowing down. This one's a little different. Marbling has a rhythm to it that's more like play than meditation. You try something, you print it, you try something else. There's an energy to it that makes two hours feel like twenty minutes.
Ben brings the rare combination of someone who understands the deep history and technique behind what he's teaching, but doesn't take himself too seriously while teaching it. He's been doing this long enough to know that the best prints usually come from the moments you stop trying to control the outcome.
Save Your Spot
Mischief & Makers Camp runs August 7 through 9 on Vashon Island. Ben's Ebru workshop is one of several hands-on sessions over the weekend, alongside chef-prepared meals and a full schedule of making, eating, and doing absolutely nothing productive.
Check out more of Ben's work at benberes.com and on Instagram at @benjamite1061.