STATE -TIMES
Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 1970

(Edited Transcript)

Ben Sams, 24 year old artist whose one man show at the Louisiana Art And Cultural Center is exhibiting some of the most imaginative and provocative ceramic sculpture ever seen locally. 

He has already had five one-man shows in addition to being represented in numerous group shows throughout the United States.

The works in the local show range from small sculptural mugs and figures to  large scaled pieces--all having some of the most beautiful, rich glazes imaginable. Every piece is made of almost infinitesimal patterns, textures, and strange forms.

One is immediately reminded of the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch, the great master of fantasy, and hours can be spent discovering the multitude of unearthly forms. Some are fanciful and delightful; some are weird and a little frightening; all are the product of an unusually daring and creative imagination.

The most spectacular pieces in the show are the large scaled creations which might be loosely called pots--but such pots as you seldom see. . . . Another of these Bosch like creations, has a body that is half man and half chicken, standing on a turtle beneath which displaced arms and hands reach out.

In many of these rather frightening figures, Sams has created what seem to be strange mutations, evolving from man, arising over man. One of them is depicted as growing from a base in which man as we know him is incorporated but seems to exist only as part of the bottom strata of an evolutionary process.

Besides their remarkable imaginativeness, these works are marked also by technical excellence. It is predicted that Sams will be one of the decade's outstanding young artists in his field.