Author Archives: matt ballou

Into Dust

Posted on by under Art, Life, Writing

“Can I remember it only in some half-form? Can I remember it only as a chimera, made of memory and will and hope? Can I not recall it totally, fully, being in myself as I was? Does no one understand the fullness of the emptying time? Does no one sense it in themselves, that time when they lost the tether? Let it loose again, to feel that it is gone! Alone. This is the deep pit of sensing, where I know the contour of death and dying. Suspended above the abyss. Glory.” – from A Mnemonic of Longing, an unpublished essay, 2002-2009.

“Look… an abyssal missive, a doctrine of smoke… ‘into dust.’

In the end I suppose that I wish for it, (and sometimes still seek it with nervous hope) that confusion. Sweet psychological instability – the wobbly legs of a newly drunken lad – here as the land curves away beneath me. I guess that, at times, the seeking is more interesting to me than the knowing. I’ve seen it here, right here on this land; is there self-loathing? What’s beneath the surface of us all? Did I see myself here for the first time, or was I just revealed anew, from a novel angle and in skewed light? The absolute beauty of being permissive, of stepping aside and watching oneself from the wings – it can’t be beat, though it stays with you in some way I can’t yet fully understand. I don’t think I ever will understand it. Watching others though – there’s the bittersweet fruit. The fallen human trembles and tumbles through life, and even at the lowest point renders to itself the most poetic, romanticized stroke.” – from A Mnemonic of Longing, an unpublished essay, 2002-2009.

Still falling
Breathless and on again
Inside today
Beside me today
A round broken in two
’til your eyes shed into dust
Like two strangers turning into dust
’til my hand shook the way I fear

I could possibly be fading
Or have something more to gain
I could feel myself growing colder
I could feel myself under your face
Under…your face

It was you
breathless and torn
I could feel my eyes turning into dust
And two strangers turning into dust
Turning into dust.

“Into Dust” by Mazzy Star

All images above are from digital photos taken between May and August 2001.

Inspiration – Sloane Snure Paullus

Posted on by under Life, Teaching

The first class I was a part of teaching at the University of Missouri included three grads – Nancy Brown, Ian Shelly, and Sloane Snure Paullus. These three – and a few others, like Catherine Armbrust, Eric Sweet, and Natalie Hellmann (among others) – have defined my experience as a teacher at MU.

Above: Sloane beading back in 2007.

Over the last year or so I’ve seen each of those first three grads finalize a body of work, refine and defend their thesis writing, organize their thesis exhibition, and move on to new things. This week saw Sloane and her husband move away from Columbia and into a new phase of their lives.

Above: Sloane and her peephole boxes, 2008.

For so long Sloane has been a cornerstone of the Art Department, bringing both intellectual excellence and paroxysms of mirth to each of us. She transformed the culture of the department, raising the bar and shaking things up. There’s really no one like her.

Above: Sloane hanging out with Ian at the Annual “Kinkade Christmas Cottage” viewing, 2009.

She was the perfect grad student; engaging as an artist, thoughtful as a friend, cosmopolitan in her views, expansive in her mentality, and distinctively creative in her sense of humor. I am thankful to have known her.

Above: Sloane Loves Britney! Halloween 2009.

Keep us all updated, Sloane! We love you!

Note: No lens flares were harmed in the making of this blog post.

Inspiration – Henry Ossawa Tanner

Posted on by under Art, Life

Henry Ossawa Tanner has been a major presence in my life as a painter for many years. His grasp of overt and subtle visual dynamics is astounding, as is his dual ability to modulate fields of colors and negotiate edge quality. In many ways his works prefigure the Abstract Expressionists who were to follow him 40 or 50 years later.  The work below, Nicodemus Visiting Jesus by Night (1899, Collection of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art),  is one of his masterworks. You can read more about the image here, and click on it for a larger view.

To me, this work below is the painter’s absolute triumph:

Annunciation (1898, Collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art). Click to expand.

At the Cincinnati Art Museum

Posted on by under Art

Alison and Miranda before Diebenkorn’s Interior with View of Building (1962)

Miranda crawling around beneath Corot’s Don Quixote (1868)

Miranda with Robert Henri’s Patience Serious (1915) – looks like Miranda’s got a painted doppelganger.

Sense of Place

Posted on by under Art, Life, Writing

There is a great Bad At Sports interview with long time Ox-Bow cook and Director of Chicago’s Roots & Culture gallery Eric May. It’s awesome. Check it out here.

Above: Eric in his grilling glory, summer 2001.

A lot of what Eric talks about in the conversation with Claudine Ise reminded me of my favorite parts of Ox-Bow life… it creates its own micro-cultural climate, its own peculiar and special sense of place. Here are some of my thoughts on it…

“It is interesting that the wonderful mixture of scents is always with you: air, fire, dirt, grass, and water. There is the staleness of cigarettes, the pungency of weed, the hoppy brews left after the parties. There are dinners of steak, shrimp, pork chops, Portobello mushrooms and ever-present feta and peas. There are soups, fish, teas, deserts, additions, and all; delights each and every day. All manner of body odors redound. The lesser animals also make their presence known, as does the mildew. Rain always works its strange rejuvenations to counter the constancy of the Lagoon. There is the rotting wood, the wet leaves, the morning mists, and my hair with its own unwashed, unkempt glory.” – – from A Mnemonic of Longing, an unpublished essay, 2002-2009.

 

Studio Visit From Keith

Posted on by under Art, Life

The talented and dinosaur-loving Keith Montgomery visited my studio last week to shoot some video and take some still images. Keith is a good friend and a former student of mine who has made tremendous strides in his photography over the last couple years. You can see a bunch of his work here, but also click on the images below for larger versions (there are also a number of other shots). You can also see our collaboration piece in The Larry Show, up at the University of Missouri’s George Caleb Bingham Gallery through August.

The Grand Studio

At Work…

Looks like I’ve got some new “at work” shots for my website, eh? Thanks, Keith!

A Poetry of Moments

Posted on by under Life

“Time there flowed with poetic speech, allowing for the most alien peace, and yet… there was an intensity of desire present. It was leaden and thick to me, though still disembodied. And really, in light of that most heinous form of yearning, it must be noted that the peace was not the peace of knowing that all things will be well. It was rather a peace of no knowledge, of un-knowledge; mistaken, the misstep.” – from A Mnemonic of Longing, an unpublished essay, 2002-2009.

“Those trees and grasses root into a series of dunes, which are phenomena both ancient and youthful, responding to the world, examples of the physics of particulate flow and erosion. From upon them they seem like simple hills, sinuous and open, breaking easily apart. They are basic structures, with the normal number of flora and fauna. From space they seem to make more sense, a domino-set of waveforms dotting the edge of that glacier lake. They are there in the old photographs on the porch of the Inn, as old as the first land deed, as old as America, as old as the continent. There is a comfort in that continuity, in that destiny of place and time; you feel as if it could always remain or always was. – from A Mnemonic of Longing, an unpublished essay, 2002-2009.

Both images above are from digital photos taken between May and August 2001.