Ed Bennett has been an artist for as long as he can remember. From his youngest days, he loved to paint.
Now 56, Bennett is still painting, sometimes focusing his brush on large structures, such as silos and barns, to transform them with his striking, often patriotic, murals.
“I’m breaking the borders, thinking outside the box,” said Bennett of his latest work on the side of one of the barns on his Bedminster property.
Using opaque stain, Bennett said he spent about three and a half days painting the colorful scene showing black, brown, white and red-tinted forearms and hands reaching upward, clasping a pole. By spring, said Bennett, he will have a real 5-feet-by-8-feet American flag mounted through the roof.
“It’s the best portrayal of Galvanized,” explained Bennett, who owns and operates the Galvanized America Inn and Art Gallery with his wife, Sherri, on the same property.
While “not political at all,” Bennett said, the mural does evoke a message of inclusivity and diversity. “As a society we don’t do a very good job of getting along right now. Hands raising the flag together is not only beautiful, it speaks to a larger message. It’s a striking visual.”
The mural side of the Durham Road-facing barn will be outlined with small lights. When a flag is raised and not taken down every night, it should be lit, said Bennett.
“I’m a proud American no matter who I’m voting for — that’s the way it should be.”
Bennett also painted a sweeping Betsy Ross flag on the silo at Durham Hill Farm, also in Bedminster, and one depicting the iconic scene of the U.S. flag being raised at Iwo Jima on the American Legion building in Hatfield Township.
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