A native of Santa Fe, New Mexico, Ben Shacklette graduated from high school in Roswell, New Mexico and earned degrees in architecture from Texas Tech and the University of Texas in Austin. A registered architect, he retired from the College of Architecture in 2021 after 34 years of teaching design, building technology, architectural graphics, drawing, and leading study abroad programs in Santa Fe, New Mexico and Seville, Spain. A significant area of his academic research was funded studies of the German Country Schools of Gillespie County surrounding Fredericksburg.

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His work emphasizes the artistic beauty, and the profound honesty expressed in the everyday buildings and places of the common people of a given geographic region. It is this focus that today informs his art which seeks to enhance a deeper understanding of, and a refined appreciation for the distinctive history of the people and the landscapes of West Texas and Eastern New Mexico.

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He and his wife live in Lubbock, Texas and have one daughter, three granddaughters, and five cats.

 

Ben Shacklette is a lifelong Dallas Cowboys fan.