[1][2] Bean is best known for his pit fired white earthenware vessels, especially his collectible, non-functional bowls and teapots.
[5] Bean also met and married fellow Claremont graduate student (of philosophy), Cathy Bao.
After graduation, Bean accepted a position teaching ceramics at Wagner College on Staten Island in New York City, where he remained until 1979.
An independent studio artist since 1979, Bean has served as an artist-in-residence at Artpark in Lewiston, New York, in 1980, as well as at the Sun Valley Center for the Arts in Indiana in 1981.
Like other potters of that era, Bean primarily threw simple pottery using little surface design other than the spontaneous markings characteristic of the pit-firing technique.
Since the mid-1990s he has typically arranged his bowls in pairs or trios, often painting across them to create the appearance of continuity among separate, independent objects.