Today Miranda and I took a mini-Daddy/Daughter date around Grandma’s neighborhood. It was good.
Author Archives: matt ballou
Dream of Light
I attended the opening of Antonio Lopez Garcia‘s retrospective at the Museum of Fine Arts – Boston back in April of 2008. It was a wonderful trip. I was thinking about it today. How momentous it felt to be there. Seeing so many friends from all over the US who were there for it – even Rackstraw Downes was there that day! Tim Lowly was there. Tim Kennedy and Eve Mansdorf were there. David Gracie was there. Sangram Majundar was there. A few low-quality photo pictures are below.
The best part for me was at an early point in the day before the crowds arrived. I found myself standing next to the master, looking together at one of his paintings. It was nice to see him looking closely, finding a contemplative moment in a masterwork he’d painted many years before. There was a leveling there, an equanimity – the master must look, just as the audience must. We both see and take in what is before us. In that space and time of perception we try to understand. In those wavelengths of light we dream of a unity and order and meaning beyond ourselves. We dream of light.
Matt Ballou: RANGE – Reception at William Woods University
My exhibition – Matt Ballou: RANGE – is still up at William Woods University until December 16, 2012. I hope you can go see it if you haven’t yet. Below are some photos of the space, both after the installation and during the reception. I want to thank everyone who came out – friends, students (graduate and undergrad, current and former), and colleagues – and especially Jennifer Sain for her help in making the exhibition happen. Special thanks to Jane Mudd for encouraging William Woods to host this show.
Installation, back on November 12, 2012.
Three panoramas of the installed work.
Two of my all-time favorite works… Locus #77 and #78
Beautiful angles and shapes during the reception…
At the reception I gave a brief impromptu talk that led into some interesting questions from the audience and my own musing on the work.
Me during my talk – Photo by Kevin Larson.
Click here to download the talk and Q+A session (42 MB MP3 format, 50 minutes long).
Some notes about the talk:
- Click here to see a picture of a Diebenkorn Ocean Park painting next to Nerdrum’s defecating woman painting.
- Learn more about Miyoko Ito here. See more of Miyoko Ito’s work here – there’s a current show up in Berlin.
- I mispronounced Coyolxauhqui in the talk. Here’s more information about her.
- Basic info about the Dodecahedron, here.
- Information about Kepler and polyhedra, here.
- Durer’s Melancholia, an example of how artists have used geometric-forms-as-connected-to-metaphysical-ideas that I speak of in the talk.
- Information on the mandorla here and here. The mandorla is based on the vesica piscis.
- Information on my Lamentations 3 series here.
Photo of me at the talk – Photo by Eric Norby.
Working It Out
There’s my daughter Miranda doing some complex equations on the chalkboard. She’s working out something profound there.
I’ve been trying to work things out, too. We’ve got a new daughter in China – Madeleine Cai Qun. We just found out yesterday. I’ve been thinking about it, trying to work out how it feels this time – this time being a dad. In some ways – between all the different sorts of work that I do, and trying to be a good dad, and trying to be a good husband – I often don’t know how I feel. My mind is usually full of research, various readings, lesson prep for 4+ classes, a whole range of concerns with my graduate students, community projects, church stuff, family stuff, house maintenance stuff, following up with friends stuff, the logistics of just being-where-I’m-supposed-to-be-when-I’m-supposed-to-be-there, and on and on… Often I don’t know what I feel or if I feel things at the proper proportion because I’m not being reflective enough – not being present enough, really – to have full awareness.
I know this is a season of my life and I know it’ll pass. But when I think about Madeleine and Miranda and Alison, I want to be totally clear.
When I see Cai Qun’s arm raised – little Madeleine Cai Qun Ballou – I’m perfectly clear. Let’s go get her now. I’m ready. I want to be her dad RIGHT NOW.
I guess that’s all I feel: let’s get this flight planned and the paperwork filed and roll. It’s transition time. It’s life-change time. I thank God for my awesome wife who has had the passion, dedication, intelligence, and intensity to follow through and pull this off. This is the sort of adventure we looked forward to a decade ago when we decided to get married. We never knew the specific character of the challenges or what particular form the dreams would take, but we worked it out. Sovereign movements indistinguishable from chance and incomprehensible without faith.
Sketching Out A New Router Table
My First Classroom
Click to see a larger view.
Here it is.
My first REAL classroom. I’d done a bit here and there. I’d done some substitution work. I’d done some minor short term stuff. But this was my first place of my own. Room 175 in the The Henry Radford Hope School of Fine Arts at Indiana University Bloomington. I taught some amazing students there. I cut my teeth, tested my strength, felt out the pace and scope and sequence of teaching. It was good to go back to that room recently – more than 8 years after – and spend time in that space. Snap a picture. Sense the light. Remember the slide of charcoal, the scratch of graphite, and the laughter of willing students.
Sometimes it’s hard to remember why this path I’ve taken is important. In the silent witness of this room there is proof of what I – what so many of us – have tried to express about awareness and presence.
I’m still seeking to be worthy of that task.
Color Drawing, Fall 2012
We’re halfway through another great semester of Color Drawing. Below are just a few examples of some of the standout work from this year. Click for higher res!
Danielle Wallace, Chalk pastel of reflections.
Emily Brewer, Oil pastel study of colored and fluid filled glass.
Emily Brewer, Oil pastel large arrangement of reflective and glass objects.
Jessica Bremehr, Colored pencil study of a lamp.
Jessica Bremehr, Oil pastel large arrangement of reflective and glass objects.
Jessica Bremehr, Chalk Pastel study of reflective surface.
Ginny Algier, Oil pastel large arrangement of reflective and glass objects.
Kevin Moreland, Chalk Pastel self portrait in a reflective surface.
Julie Bennett, Oil pastel large arrangement of reflective and glass objects.
Click HERE to see more of my posts on my Color Drawing class glory!
Barry Gealt: Embracing Nature at the IU Art Museum
Yesterday my wife, daughter, and I made an epic 17 hour round trip to Bloomington, Indiana. We left our home at 9am and returned a little after 2am the next morning.
It was a long, rainy drive, but it was worth it. We went to the opening reception for Emeritus Professor Barry Gealt’s retrospective exhibition Embracing Nature at the Indiana University Art Museum.
Barry was my main professor while I earned my MFA at IU and has continued to be a mentor and encouragement. It was the least I could do to be present for this opening and evening of celebrating Barry’s life and work as both a painter and an educator. Below are a few fragments from the night.
The text just inside the doorway to the Special Exhibitions Wing of the IU Art Museum.
Detail of Greenwich Beach, Prince Edward Island, 2009. The top layer of a living document.
Detail of Condon’s View of Corea, Maine, 2011. Brushmarks are alchemical – both entirely surface and entirely illusion; both/and.
Prince Edward Island, East Point (2009), commands a wall in the gallery. The works spill and splash; their air inundates viewers.
A detail of the majestic edge of Indiana Vista, 2001. Paint as light, matter, air, and presence.
A detail view of Owen County Vista from 1994 – compared to Barry’s more recent work this is pretty smooth. Even so, it’s tremendously worked and amazingly saturated.
Beautiful density in a detail of The Cave, 1994. This painting is incredible in its color and level of surface development. Evocative.
Robert Shakespeare’s Light Totem saturated the area outside Barry’s show with energy – my 2 year old loved it.
There’s Barry waving to me from across the Atrium during the post-reception dinner. A beautiful space and a beautiful evening.
Here I am (sporting my Indianapolis Colts Marvin Harrison #88 jersey) holding the book that was published in tandem with the exhibition. It is AWESOME. You can pre-order your own copy by clicking here. Do it! The essays are wonderful, the reproductions and details fantastic. I was able to have a significant correspondence with the author, Rachael Berenson Perry, in 2011 which resulted in many of my thoughts and reflections on my time with Barry being used in the book. I was extremely honored to be included in this text; it’s really more than I could have imagined. To get to be a part of this celebration of Barry’s life and work is humbling and truly a highpoint of my life as an artist.
If you can get to the show, DO IT. It’s worth it.
Barry Gealt: Embracing Nature will be on at the IU Art Museum from October 6 until December 23, 2012
New Diebenkorn book on the way!
Click the image to see the Yale University Press page for this new book on Richard Diebenkorn!
Inspiration – Norleen Nosri
Norleen Nosri is a talented ceramist from Malaysia who is earning her MFA here at the University of Missouri. I’m privileged to work with her and to own several of her beautiful pieces. Her work is, to me, almost above comment. The compositions she creates are gentle and evocative. She says they are an attempt to “elicit harmony in duality.”
Above: Two images I took when I met with Norleen in her studio this past week. These groups of objects were there awaiting their placement in larger compositional arrangements and I was struck by the incidental beauty of their color, interrelated shapes, and intimate space. There was an amazing northern light coming in through a bank of windows; it produced a wonderful glow on the exquisite surfaces of Norleen’s porcelain vessels…
Here are two cups my wife and I have that were made by Norleen.
This last image is an example of Norleen’s awesome maker’s mark. The Nosri name is of tremendous importance to her, and is a connection to her family, her country, her heritage, and the meaning she understands of life. Having discussed this name with her many times, I always make it a point – whenever I hold one of her creations – to turn it over and look upon this honorable name.
eikonktizo 