Quick Take
Santa Cruz artist Ben Faris, who died in 2024, is the subject of a new art show at the R. Blitzer Gallery that showcases his wide talents and his ability to tap into universal, even mythic themes and imagery.
Though she knew him better than anyone, Lauralee Alben still speaks about her son, Ben, with a sense of wonder, as if a deep mystery died with him.
Ben Faris died a year ago, at the age of 35, leaving behind a staggering legacy as a visual artist, although he was also a committed poet and musician. He had wrestled with health issues for years and produced art like he was racing against time. Still, the notion that he was destined to die at a young age never percolated up into conscious thought for either mother or son, she said.
“I think somewhere we both knew it deep inside of us,” she said “Over time, I documented every blink of his eyes, because I just didn’t want to take the chance. I wanted to capture everything that I could.”
Alben is standing in the middle of the R.Blitzer Gallery on the Westside of Santa Cruz, in the midst of a new art show dedicated to her son’s work, titled “The Story of a Lifetime is a Blink of an Eye.” As the mother of the artist and as an award-winning commercial designer in her own right, she was also a natural fit as the show’s curator.
She said her son was always creating, at all hours of the day, every day. That compulsion to create resulted in a body of work that consisted of hundreds of works, most never seen in public. Taken as a whole, the retrospective exhibit shows a remarkable breadth of imagery and technique that reaches deep into a kind of Jungian world of mythic power.
Alben speaks of her son in terms beyond talent and vision: “He was a shooting star that was embodied here in this realm to help us all.” She refers to him as a “warrior, a teacher, a creator, a healer and a lover.” She said that he was recognized as a shaman by four Indigenous medicine men.
Santa Cruz muralist and artist Taylor Reinhold was a close friend of Faris. Both grew up amid that artistic community of Santa Cruz’s Westside. “Ben was just … otherworldly,” said Reinhold. “There’s just no other way to explain his story. He had one foot in this realm and another foot in the spirit realm. He was a true visionary. He could truly see two different realms, bounce between them and come back and forth to enlighten us all with his art.”
His parents were both creatives and founding partners in a Santa Cruz-based design firm, Alben+Faris, which specialized in software and multimedia. His aunt was filmmaker Valerie Faris, who directed “Little Miss Sunshine” and “Battle of the Sexes” with her husband, Jonathan Dayton, among other projects. His grandparents, Jim and Paula Faris, worked in the film industry as animators and editors.
“He grew up in our design firm and with all our staff, sitting on their knees from the time he was 3 weeks old,” said Alben.
He was drawing self-portraits as early as age 6 or 7. “We didn’t need to do anything [to prompt him],” said his mother. “We just needed to get out of the way.”
By the time he had reached high school, Faris had demonstrated a preternatural talent in drawing, painting and design. Katie Harper, who taught art at Santa Cruz High School for 40 years, said Faris was among the most talented young artists she’d ever encountered.
“He really had a strong sense of where he wanted to go,” said Harper. “I basically just custom-fit the curriculum to him. I was more of a guide with him. I was really impressed with his drive. He was very focused, but super sweet and gentle, open to anything.”
Harper kept a small room adjacent to her art classroom that was playfully known as “The Hole.” She used it to give particularly talented students some private space to lose themselves in their work. Faris used it often. “He was so advanced,” Harper said, “he was able to push through the noise and the clutter of the world of teens, and become a very wonderful young man, which is hard to do.”
Faris’ art at that time was steeped in the imagery of the streets, graffiti and exaggerated figures that young people liked to sport on their T-shirts and skateboards. As a teen, he founded one company to produce his street art called Zeal, and later teamed up with Reinhold to create another company called Awake. Each marketed apparel and other goods featuring Faris’ art.
“It was really just focusing on Ben’s art and his awakening to the peace and struggle of environmentalism, and his efforts to awaken people to work together consciously and become better stewards of the planet,” said Reinhold.
Later, Faris explored a wider range of artistic modes and techniques. Art conservationist Robert Watson never knew him personally, but he has helped catalogue and preserve Faris’ art.
“I was really astonished by all of his different techniques,” said Watson, considering Faris’ evolution as an artist. “He starts off very youthful, then goes into another period, then another period. And then, he becomes almost masterful.”
As he got older, Faris’ work took on a more universal, even mystical tone. He explored a wide range of styles and motifs, all aimed at tapping into a highly symbolic world of deeper experience. Health challenges – he died of sepsis brought by heart problems – pushed him to express his pain through art. He created a form of written language similar to rongorongo, a system of primitive writing through glyphs associated with Easter Island. He was inspired by the tradition of yokai, a class of supernatural demonic figures in Japanese folklore, to create his own masks and spirit creatures.
Taylor Reinhold, who had a hand in the curation and mounting of the R.Blitzer show, said he is forever indebted to his friend’s example. Reinhold said that Faris came into his life at about the same time his father died, and inspired him to continue on his own artistic journey. In fact, Awake, the company he started with Faris, eventually evolved into Reinhold’s current company, Made Fresh Crew, the local clothing company that also spearheaded the creation of the Sea Walls murals throughout downtown Santa Cruz.
“He would make connections everywhere he went,” Reinhold said of his friend. “He was just this giant, jolly, beautiful ball of energy and light. You just wanted to follow him wherever he went.”
In 2026, Alben will concentrate on producing two books, one of her son’s art pieces, another of his poetry. She designed the show to map her son’s spiritual awakening, she said. “Now, we’re at ‘Coming Home,’” she said, as she guided me through the exhibit’s last display. “That was what Ben was always looking for in his life. Where is my home? Where do I belong? Who are the ones who understand me?”
A reception for the new show “The Story of a Lifetime is a Blink of An Eye,” featuring the art of Ben Faris, takes place Sunday from 1 to 4 p.m. A closing reception takes place Friday, Dec. 5, from 4 to 7 p.m. at the R.Blitzer Gallery in the Old Wrigley Building in Santa Cruz.
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