Bean Venom

September, 2016

BEAN VENOMARTIST IN RESIDENCEBlack metal, satanic imagery and biker-gang iconography are all subjects that San Francisco-based artist Ben Venom (a.k.a. Ben Baumgartner) lovingly transforms into quilts. Yes, quilts. How exactly did a metalhead with an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute gravitate toward the methods of your great-grandma’s sewing circle? As a graduate student in 2006, Venom saw an exhibit of works by the legendary African American quilters of Gee’s Bend, Alabama in which scra...