Ben Caswell, who died October 22 at the age of 71, was one of the important figures in Woodstock for many years. He moved to town in the late 1970s, drawn by a girlfriend from his roaming post-college years and the promise of a federally-funded arts job at a non-profit photography organization. He taught classes and worked alongside the town’s other photographers printing images for Woodstock Times. Later, he had a darkroom off Tannery Brook, where a five-minute trip to pick up prints would inevitably take an hour or three of conversation that was equal parts gossip and philosophy.
Caswell moved onto Tinker Street, then to Phoenicia. He worked for years hanging art and doing odd jobs at the Woodstock Artists Association & Museum. He married a Japanese photographer, Mizuyo (Mimi) Aburano, who has worked years at the Woodstock School of Art and renovated an old Victorian home. Had a son, Kai, who’s now 13 and as tall and handsome as his dad.
As news spread over recent days about Caswell’s passing, and friends gathered at his open-casket viewing at the Gormley Funeral Home in Phoenicia, the breadth of the man’s reputation for gentility and solid friendship multiplied. He’d gotten a chapter named for him in a memoir by artist Ed Ruscha’s brother Paul. He was profiled for his photos as well as the ways in which it seemed that all of Woodstock, and eventually most of Phoenicia knew him.
“I met Ben when I started to work at WAAM, and we worked together for the next twelve years,” said executive director Josephine Bloodgood. “He took great care of the collection, photographing and matting probably a thousand or more pieces from the permanent collection and helping in countless other tasks — painting, plumbing, receptions, whatever it took — always with a smile. He always made us laugh. If he took a trip — even just around Woodstock, which he often did — and saw something that made him think of you, you’d find a little gift of one kind or another on your desk.”
“I have so many memories, always focused on the good times we had together,” said Howard Greenberg, founder of the Center for Photography at Woodstock, where Ben started working in town. “There was a time when Ben and I were essentially inseparable,” Greenberg wrote in an email from Germany. “I never ever could have made the transition from CPW to Photofind gallery in 1981to1986 without him. We shared five wonderful, fun-filled, sometimes raucous, amazingly productive, never dull or boring years working and playing together. It didn’t begin or end there, but as I think of those years, they were the best.
“Ben was forever a gentle and kind guy,” continued Greenberg. “We would tussle over this and that, but I only remember laughing and getting it all done in the end. He had this attractive, mischievous look in his eyes, which always belied the little boy inside. I have to believe that look never quite went away. There were always one or two females around, but they couldn’t pin him down—congratulations, Mimi, you did!. Not only did we work well together but I can’t remember Ben ever saying no to anyone when a favor or a job was asked of him. And the only complaints I can remember was an occasional role of the eyes, and a shared expression of ‘oh man.’ I guess others can share of his accomplishments as a photographer, a carpenter, a guy who could take care of almost anything. He was certainly all those. And more recently, he was obviously a devoted husband and father.”
Noted former Times editor Parry Teasdale, “I don’t know about stories, but I do have a copy of his photo of Woodstock kids after what was the annual shaving-cream event on Halloween or the night before. It is among my favorite Page 1 photos.”
That and others of the hundreds of photos played as part of a slide show that Mimi had put together to honor her late husband. Witty, often surreal, self-portraits. A full sense of the wild fun Woodstock kids have long had growing up in town. Women of various ages responding to both Caswell’s Lothario-looks and true-blue constant sweetness and gentle humor. And an entire world filled with Mimi and Kai in recent years.
Old friends shared memories outside, the bright sky gazing down on them all as photographers Dion Ogust and John Kleinhans recalled working alongside Caswell on shoots, or in his darkrooms cluttered with music players and a television playing from behind a red light. His gift for the deep gossip of his adopted home town. Or tales from his days working with Larry Flynt at the L.A. Free Press, where he rose from proofreader to photo editor before moving to Woodstock following an assassination attempt on Flynt.
Others spoke about heartfelt talks, especially after Caswell was diagnosed with prostate cancer within months of his son’s birth. He started to forget all he knew about the mechanics of his craft, asking friends how to use a light meter, say, or work the chemicals in a darkroom. There was even talk of how Ben would have loved to have shot a portrait of himself, open casket. He stayed in touch while living in his gentle and fun-filled present.
Benson B. Caswell was born February 20, 1949 in Poughkeepsie and grew up in the central New York town of Rome. He was an alumnus of Rochester Institute of Technology’s photography program, attended the University of Indiana, worked at what would become CPW on a CETA grant. He ran a photography dark-room business for years, curated and hung gallery shows at the Woodstock Artist Association and Museum, and provided slides for local artists back when those were necessary and in-demand.
Surviving are his wife Mizuyo Aburano and son Kai, both of Phoenicia, and sister Wendy Caswell of North Carolina.
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