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Biography Benjamin Grosser is an artist, composer, and designer. Check out Grosser's biography on his main website, where you can see his paintings, photographs, and other works. Accolades for Build Your Own Easel This website has garnered many favorable reviews, from the formal to the informal. The highlight of these blurbs was a favorable review in the June 2000 issue of Art Calendar magazine. It has also received favorable mention in various artist newsletters (i.e. Studio Notes), artist websites (i.e. WetCanvas) and numerous woodworking plan sites on the web. Have you ever found yourself in need of a large, sturdy easel? You head for your favorite art supply catalog (which sells you paint at a reasonable price) and look up the easels. Hmm, this one is only $250, but wait, it only holds a painting up to 60" and I paint HUGE paintings. Or maybe you *might* paint a huge painting. Ok, this one will hold an 84" painting, but wait, its $600!! This one does 96", but its $800!! All of a sudden you imagine having an easel to hold your painting but no paint to paint with. I found myself in this position when I was relatively early in my painting activities. I wasn't skimping on my art supplies, but I was much more interested in what $500-$1000 worth of *paint* could do for my art a lot more than I was in what that money could do for an easel in my studio. While my friend Danielle thought I was crazy for all the hand woodworking I was doing at the time (building stretchers by hand), I decided to solve the problem by designing my own easel. Some sketches on paper, some trial and error and a lot of hand cuts later, I had an easel. While it was still fresh in my mind, I drew up the plans and the original version of the website in 1998 and posted it. Why put the plans up for free? I benefit daily from information that others have posted on the web for free. This includes information that helps me in my work (primarily technical computer-related information), my creative endeavors (painting, photography, music, etc.), my daily life (weather, home repair) and even my health. I would prefer to see this information stay free, and the only way to help ensure that is to do so with my own info. I am also very encouraged by correspondence from those who have built one or those who plan to. Pictures of finished easels are especially welcome. There have been several easel plans for a fee posted to the web over the last few years. Some are still up now. These may or may not be any good--I've never bought one. However, I can't help but figure I've not done their business much good. In fact, I'll never forget (try though I might) when I once received a very nasty email from a woman I had sent an email to asking her to list me on her 'links to other artists' page on her website. Turns out she was the publisher of a small press that had just put out their own book on a studio easel plan. She claimed my plan was flawed because I didn't use hardwood, didn't finish the easel, nor did I give a history of general woodworking. Sounded to me like she was looking to make a few bucks and was unhappy I wasn't. I was also obviously more interested in helping artists without much money (giving them plans for free and suggesting they use low-cost materials). She ended by saying I was giving out really bad advice and that my easel would fall apart in the near future. Needless to say, her book went out of publication a few years ago. My easels are still doing as well as the day they were built (one of them was built in 1998!).
Right now I'm focusing on new media work, and as such am not painting as much as I used to. However, I do still paint occasionally. Here's a collection of my abstract paintings. You can also Visit my projects page to see my work in other media. I invite correspondence from anyone who has questions about the design. It sometimes take me a while to get back, but I will write back if you ask me to. I also love to get appreciative emails as much as the next person (see the gallery for some examples). For some reason, positive emails regarding this site have more than once functioned as a bright-spot to an otherwise difficult or stressful day. Send emails to grosser(NOSPAMat)bengrosser.com (replace the (NOSPAMat) with the @). I can accept image attachments (of easel photos of course) at this address. Finally, I encourage you to visit the rest of my website, where you can see examples or hear of my paintings, photography, music, and new media work.
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