Walking through Bob Benson's front yard provides a glimpse into his imagination.

Two man-made trees covered in hundreds of hand-cut pieces of mirrors sparkle in the breeze, and twinkling mirror-covered mobiles and ornaments greet visitors in the front of his A-frame chalet-style home in Glen Burnie.

The 86-year-old says the decorations don't bother the neighbors.

Well, most of them.

Benson is a mirror artist, perhaps most famous for the Universal Tree of Life that reflects light in front of the American Visionary Art Museum near Baltimore's Inner Harbor. He is also responsible for the detailed ocean and sun structures in the museum's hanging Icarus exhibit.

He creates from his home studio, which is a virtual museum of his creations: tree branches holding shimmering strings; seemingly infinite mirror and light displays; paint-and-mirror combinations called “mirrorages”; and hanging ornaments he calls “flashies.”

Benson became a mirror artist in 2004. Before that, he had worked as a classical music radio host, director of community development for the Maryland Arts Council and an Army secretary.

“Everybody has some spark of creativity in them,” he said. “They have to find some way to express it.”

Benson says his interest in mirror art began in a friend's yard.

“There was a single strand of double mirrors. It was shiny and moving, and I thought, ‘Boy, this has possibilities.' So I just took [the idea] and ran from there,” he said. “I started to make things and experiment, and I made all sorts of things, trial and error. I started to make oscillums, a disc that ancient Greeks and Romans had in their courtyards and vineyards to bring good luck and a good harvest.

“It just fascinated me, all the things you can make.”

He says he has always admired art, and has “respect [for] those who can make beautiful things.”

But he notes that there's a “thin line between the sublime and the ridiculous.”

“Once I saw a piece of modern art, and it was a whole page of white with a little black dot in the corner, and art critics were raving about it. That's stupid.

“A lot of art is sort of unintentional,” he said. “Look at these modern artists that just throw paint on the wall. And a lot of people consider that to be art. I don't. I think sometimes it can be very beautiful in its own way, but it's not art.”

For Benson, art is “creating something that means something, and hopefully it's going to be beautiful to look at.

His Universal Tree of Life started taking shape about 10 years ago.

“I had my yard filled with all sorts of mirror things, and a neighbor, Rick Ames stopped by. He said, ‘I love your art.' It turns out he's an artist, and a very fine artist,” said Benson. “And he said, ‘Why don't you make a Christmas tree?' I said I would love to, except I would need a metal base, and I can't work in metal.”

Ames designed and made the metal frame of the tree, and it spent the next two years in Benson's yard.

“Rebecca Hoffberger, the incredible woman who conceived the Visionary Arts Museum more than two decades ago, saw it and said, ‘We'd like to have it,'?” Benson recalled.

“So we made it bigger, we took it down there. It's been there now for about eight years.

“It's become an icon for the museum, which makes me very proud,” he said.

Benson conducts workshops at the American Visionary Arts Museum, usually with about 24 people, he said. He finds satisfaction in helping people discover and nurture their creative side.

“People just have a ball. One time there were two women there, and one of them was a little timid and cautious and I spent a lot of time with her,” he said. “She finally was able to cut her pieces and only made one flashie. Most people make two.

“A week after they left, her friend sent me an email and said she wanted me to know that her friend told her she felt this was the first time in her life she had created something really beautiful all by herself,” Benson said.

“That's sort of sad,” he said, “but it's nice.”