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Ceramist Ron Benstead was born in Calgary in 1938. After graduation from Crescent Heights High School in Calgary, he studied at the Alberta College of Art from 1957 to 1958. He worked at various jobs after college, including a commercial artist, a food caterer and with the Alberta Liquor Control Board. However, it was a job helping ceramist Walter Drohan build a house in Bragg Creek Alberta that inspired Benstead to take up ceramics as a serious profession. Drohan showed Benstead the basics of ceramic art production by having him help with mixing the clay and unloading the kiln, leading Benstead to do his own research in order to develop his skills to a professional level. Giving up his job with the liquor board, he bought a small electric kiln and began making his own artworks in a studio that he established in Bragg Creek.
Inspired by Alberta's dinosaur fossil remains, Ron Benstead collected his own specimens and made murals incorporating fossil forms. He also made smaller, whimsical works mostly depicting animals displayed in humorous ways, typical of which is “Chess Set” from the Alberta Foundation for the Art’s Collection. He had many exhibitions and his work has largely been collected privately, sold through commercial galleries in Calgary, Banff, Victoria, and Winnipeg.
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