Over the last five or six years, I’ve been involved with a project by an artist and collector named Jim Kasper. In January 2026, that project will come to fruition with the publication of a new book featuring the work of many excellent painters and drafts-persons. These artists are drawn from a range of generations, backgrounds, and faith traditions, but they were commissioned by Jim to build a current vision of artworks that take on the complex themes and histories that form the bible.
Two incredible essays – as well as writings by the artists themselves – help contextualize the works and elucidate the ways these artists add their current voices to ancient conversations.
Also, as part of the upcoming initial dual-site exhibition in Columbia, MO (more info on that when it’s ready), I am offering prints of 5 of my works in the Kasper Collection. I hope you’ll click below and check them out – it’s always good to support artists instead of billionaires, especially in times such as the ones in which we’re living.
My contributions to the Collection are varied. I was glad that Jim allowed me to pursue more straightforward “traditional” painting, but also to work in relief carving and enigmatic, abstract imagery. With the five images above, I was inspired by everything from Correggio’s Jupiter and Io to the physical stylization in the mythology-based paintings of Kyle Staver. I wanted the works to embrace their illustrative side, with strong visual dynamics, weird bodies to match weird activities, and intense colors.
When I was young – perhaps five years old – I caught on to the notion that you could call in to the radio station and request songs. I enjoyed listening to the oldies stations and wondering what song might come up next. This was in the era of Casey Kasem and the power of the Billboard Top 100, and music was a little more of a communal cultural situation.
In any case, I was a radio person back then and I liked the idea that you could influence what was going to be played. One day at the age of 8 or so I decided that I wanted to call in to request the Gordon Lightfoot song The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. I got the number. I (kind of) worked out what I was going to say. But when I got on the air to make the request, I made a fundamental mistake.
You have to understand that my father had a large record collection, and I knew about a lot of different music from my older siblings, so I had heard a lot of names. It was an easy mistake for a kid to make, damn it! When the DJ asked me what I wanted to hear, I was a little flustered and blurted out:
“Can you please play The Wreck of the Ella Fitzgerald by Gordon Lightfoot?!”
This faux-pas got quite a laugh, and not only from the DJ, but also from my family. In the aftermath of this flub I can state I have known the difference between the Edmund Fitzgerald and the great singer Ella Fitzgerald since that very day.
In all seriousness, though, given that I was so interested in the song it was only natural that not so many years later I would start reading books and articles about the events surrounding this notorious loss of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Gordon Lightfoot was one of the first singer-songwriters who captured and fired my imagination. He (among some others) caused me to think about time and experience in a different way; as something within me and happening alongside me, not just random stuff apart from my life. Perhaps it’s a testament to the very idea of songwriting and musicianship as artforms. For me, Lightfoot embodied that troubadour tradition. These artists sing the tales of history, document it in personal ways, and help shape a democratic view of history itself.
Of course, everyone knows most famously Bob Dylan as one of these history-singers. But there were many others. I would include people like Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Billie Holiday, Utah Phillips, and Natalie Merchant amongst that group. So many… From Woodie Guthrie and Townes Van Zandt to Tracy Chapman and Ani DiFranco and P.J. Harvey. It’s such a rich – and necessary – tradition.
I find it fitting that my interest in the event of the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald and learning about the history surrounding it – not to mention becoming curious about the whole Great Lakes region – is all connected to the art of singing out moments of collective experience. This, like so many other things, I owe to art and artists. This is the richness of life: Not in things, but in awareness. Not in owning, but in being.
The SS Edmund Fitzgerald as seen from the Ambassador Bridge in 1965. Detroit Historical Society
Today is the 50th anniversary of that ship sinking on Lake Superior. There are many interesting articles currently available from the days and weeks leading up to today (including this one from the Smithsonian and this one from Popular Science). So read about the ship. Read about the song, and listen to it (here’s the first version, but I’ve always been partial to the 1988 re-recording Lightfoot made – it’s a tad longer and has a slight mood adjustment that feels symbolic and mystical to me).
Then take at least 29 seconds – one “for each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald” – and may those moments of silent remembrance of them cause you to consider what human commerce, ingenuity, and hubris can do in the face of Nature’s power.
I think back to this show fondly because Jen is awesome and I like having exhibitions with former students (and have done so a number of times, with Jane, Jacob, and most recently with Simon). I took a bunch of images during the installation and recorded some audio of us talking about the work. After listening to it a couple months ago I decided I wanted to celebrate our little show and the work we made there.
I was making my An Ensign for Miyoko Ito series, and experimenting with drawing robots – at the time very cheap ones that couldn’t make very large pieces. I was taking cues from Ito’s works and, as a response to that, Jen decided to use my artworks as the basis for her pieces. Using my work to create tessellated fields of colorful geometry printed on fabric, she then sewed cutting patterns onto them. The notion of a interference pattern felt particularly resonant to the work we both made for the show. This layering of influences and predilections still feels rich to me, and I wanted to share them with everyone again. Thanks so much for doing this show with me, Jen! Though her MFA was in a Fibers focus, these days she does a lot of dynamic photography, mostly in black and white. Check it out here!
Below you can see some images from our installation session and my statement for the show, as well as see more work and hear us talk about it in the video here:
Statement for BALLOU/BENNETT: INTERFERENCE PATTERN
In my recent body of work, titled An Ensign for Miyoko Ito, I seek out the compacted and the overdrawn; the enclosed and the layered; the transformed and the solidified. I look for shapes, colors, and spaces that go far beyond a simple tension between figuration and abstraction, trying instead to suggest a layered arena of observational and haptic information.
Miyoko Ito (Japanese-American, 1918-1983) – whose work has been a key influence on me over the last 20 years – was able to activate subtle surfaces with the illusion of space and an evocative sense of palpability. This is what I’m investigating: the experience of perception apart from particular, representational depiction. In my exploration, questions arise: Does flat form appear to move away from my angle of view? Will color resolve into both static surface and suggested movement? Can space and color align to reinforce both static structure and an expression of time? Might the poetics of silent, unmoving images actually produce phenomena akin to those found in dreams, memories, ecstatic sensations, and atemporal musings?
By pairing my work with Jen’s extrapolations from that work, I hope to suggest the multiplicity of information that may be gathered from surface, color, and texture. She perceives something of Miyoko Ito through my translations. Beyond this, Jen’s artworks add other layers – of visual logic, of aesthetic influences, and of categories of understanding. In this modest exhibition, Jen and I participate in the ongoing interrogation of received knowledge and sensation.
Receiving anything – taking it into our mind and heart – always changes it. It is what it is and it is what we perceive it to be. We are forever adding our own unique inflection to the language of the world pouring into us. That is why I see my own proclivities in the shapes and patterns that Jen uses… and so I see my heroes, my influences, and my hopes there as well.
Matt Ballou, Portrait of my Father, Marvin G. Smith. Oil on panel, 20×16 inches. 2014.
Marvin Glenn Smith died on Tuesday, August 12, 2025. He was 83 years old. Marv was born on May 24, 1942 in Camden, NY. He loved Studebaker cars, bawdy blues music, and the aircraft of World War 1. In many ways these things framed the contours of his life.
Known for his love of fast cars and racing, Marvin survived a horrible accident at the age of 19, an event that left him with extensive, permanent injuries. He spent the rest of his life going to auto shows, attending and watching races around the country, and collecting manuals and other materials related to cars and the racing world.
Mom and Dad, mid 1970s.
Marv went on to a long career at Camden Wire, working in the quality assurance area, where he was able to use his sharp skills in analysis and mathematics. He took an early retirement in 1995, eventually settling north of Camden in Empeyville, NY.
It was at this time that his decades long passion for studying World War 1 became a main focus for him. He filled his time with reading and research, amassing a collection of WW1 books, objects, documents, firearms, and art. He traveled extensively to explore military history at museums and trade shows, but perhaps most cherished was his trip to Germany in 1997, where he visited many battle sites first hand.
He had a unique personality – a calm, pleasant demeanor with a touch of nihilism sprinkled in. He would constantly drop catch phrases into conversations: “Nothin’ serious” and “Another day in paradise” came up often. As a “live and let live” Libertarian, Marv often found himself at odds with the dominant, invasive politics of his adult life. Though a quiet, reserved man, he always enjoyed conversation and could hold forth about the blues or history any time. He loved discussing items in his WW1 collection and possessed an exhaustive knowledge of the people and places of that time.
My last chat with my dad, 2025. Photo by my sister.
He is survived by his sisters Linda (Leon) and Martha, his children Walter, Matthew (Alison), and Stacey, and many grand kids. He was preceded in death by his parents and beloved daughter Denya. At Marvin’s request, there will be no funeral service.
My sister Stacey was able to retrieve a piece of dad’s WW1 trench art, a 50mm artillery shell decorated in a floral motif with an eagle. This will serve as dad’s urn when he is buried in his family plot. It’s wild – and sort of perfectly poetic – that something made by a young man in the tumultuous trenches of a world at war 110 years ago, will now go into the ground in upstate NY with my father. In a way, he got to take one part of the collection he built over a lifetime with him.
I’m pleased to announce the publication of a catalog about the exhibition that Simon Tatum and I had at Vanderbilt University last year. Working with Oswaldo Garcia at The Riso Room, housed within Mizzou’s School of Visual Studies, I was able to produce a slim volume that highlights some of the work and writing that Simon and I produced for this show. We hope to take the exhibition around to other venues, and these catalogs feel like a great physical supplement to proposals. Click below to take a look inside.
The images show representative examples of the work we include, as well as updated texts that give an overview of the history and context we’re working within. I’m excited by how the risograph process has captured the documentary quality of Simon’s work and the surface development of my own pieces. I love the way the back cover shows Donald Crowhurst’s final coda, “IT IS THE MERCY.” Taken from his logs, this is Crowhurst’s actual writing reproduced.
If you’re interested in obtaining a copy for $25, please send payment via one of the options below:
Today I went into the printmaking room at The University of Missouri and placed a lithophane in the widows there.
The idea for this began a few years ago while playing with my drawing robot. I wanted to try different line modes in various images, and happened to throw in a picture of Eric. One of the resulting works was this small ballpoint pen piece:
Head of Sweet. Ink on paper, 5×3 inches. 2022.
The piece I’ve hung today is intentionally related to Sweet’s MFA thesis works, which featured embossed relief and required specific lighting to be seen. Click here to see examples of these works (and a cool picture of Eric in the very printmaking room where my lithophane is now hanging). The portrait of Eric I’ve made is designed to be somewhat inscrutable unless strongly lit from behind. In the documentary images I’ve posted below, you can see the image is barely visible. I have included some shots with a flash on so you can see the relief dimension of the piece.
Ten Years of Seizing the Sixth. PLA, printed on a FlashForge Adventurer 5M. It’s 7×5.25x.25 in size. 2025.
It’s important to maintain the reality of those who have passed on. This is as much about keeping ourselves real as much as it is celebrating their lives. In reminding ourselves of others’ lives, in being creative in that remembering, we find and define ourselves. Keeping Eric in the world through making and practicing attention is a way of honoring him and the values he held.
Ten Years of Seizing the Sixth. PLA, 7×5.25x.25 in size. 2025. This is what it looks like with strong illumination behind the lithophane.
Nine years ago today I experienced cardiac arrest, and I started a journey to becoming a new person. One of the ongoing fun bits related to my heart attack and eventual recovery, was that my friend – famed bookstore co-owner, and local arts organization legend – Kelsey finally accepted the reality of narwhals!
You see, it – the existence of narwhals that is – had been a minor contention between us for quite a while (see above image). I’d mention the unicorn of the sea and she’d push back. But when I woke up from my ordeal and began sorting through the notes, good vibes, and other well-wishes I found a Post-It note from Kelsey. On it she drew the beast and wrote above it, POR VIDA – “for life!” She told me that since I’d pulled through, she could accept the truth of narwhal-kind!
I’ve kept Kelsey’s Post-It note up all these years, right there in my kitchen where I can see it daily. But this year I felt it was appropriate to take it to the next level. I’ve commissioned a local tattoo artist to bring Kelsey’s drawing to life on my very flesh!
Once it is healed up I’ll add a nice shot of it to this post. I’m grateful to people like Kelsey, who have given me so much joy and hope in humanity over the years. She is a true community spirit, someone who understands kindness and laughter. And I’m proud to carry her drawing with me – on me! – from now on, a reminder to seize the day, be happily present, and to embrace the wondrous absurdities all around us.
In March 2003 I had been working at Good’s of Evanston for about 18 months. I worked there after earning my undergraduate degree, and at the time was getting ready to get married and head to grad school.
I worked at Good’s with an amazing cast of characters: Ronnie Boykin Junior, David Gracie, Micah Ebbe, Fred Sturkey, and so many others. One of the people there was Jeremiah Ketner, a man who has gone on to a long and fruitful art career. One day I saw Jeremiah’s coffee cup and we mused together about coffee sometimes being a main meal during the work day. I decided to paint a view of his so-called lunch.
Jeremiah’s Lunch 3/14/2003. Watercolor and graphite on paper. 5×6 inches on 14×11 sheet. 2003.
As the Shipping and Receiving Manager, I often had some time between shipments to make art in my little office. I loved that space. Did a lot of thinking back there.
A picture of me in my shipping and receiving office at Good’s of Evanston. 2003.
During this time Alison and I lived in a 3rd floor apartment that had this amazing accumulation of paint and interesting architectural details. Of course, anyone who has lived in Chicagoland is familiar with paint slathered over outlet holes, quirky entryways, specific brick hues, and questionable back stairwells. We had arches throughout the apartment, and I found myself ruminating on them between doing more “important” work. I made my whole portfolio to apply to grad school in that apartment. It’s strange to think that these two small watercolors ended up being special to me. I wouldn’t have guessed it at the time.
Arching Corner. Watercolor and graphite on paper. 12×11 on 14×11 inch paper. 2003.
Anyway, as we round out another year I find comfort in these small contemplations. Maybe the lesson is that all of my grand attempts to make statements or contribute to important conversations weren’t the best or most effective offering I could make. Maybe it was the fact that I noticed and paid attention to the poetry of spaces, moments, in-between time, and life being lived that really mattered.
Growing up I found intense comfort in the music and lyrics of the iconic Canadian band Rush. Rush hold a particular place in the history of rock music, as they were both iconoclastic and unapologetically moral and humanist in orientation. Their songs were not the realm of edge lords or shock rockers. They didn’t make songs about sex, drugs, violence, or stupidity. Much to the contrary. They thought deeply, expressed those thoughts intensely, and were able to stand out in completely unique ways because of the quality of their unified talents.
Rush pioneered rock music as an intellectual pursuit. They were compelling because they stood on principles, and communicated deep commitment to human concerns without couching it in schmaltz. You can sense honesty in their dedication to their musical craft and in the meaning embedded in the lyrics Neil Peart wrote.
John Dewey, a central philosopher of the pragmatist movement, established much of the foundation surrounding art as a moral structure in society. Don’t misunderstand me; I don’t mean propaganda or dogma being used within art to influence or instruct. I mean deeply human values translated into actionable expressions of yearning and awareness.
“Anthem of the heart and anthem of the mind A funeral dirge for eyes gone blind We marvel after those who sought Wonders in the world”
–Anthem
In Rush we see full expressions of a world where reason, empathy, and the better angels of our nature have had free reign. We find artifacts proving the best human capacities for love, attention, and hope.
When I think back on what inspired me and what stuck with me for all of these years, I think it is the sense of hope and expectation that they created. Actually, maybe hope is the wrong word… I think yearning might be a better way to describe it. Hope, in a sense, lacks agency. It sees life as something that happens to a person rather than what a person chooses, navigates, or constructs for themselves and alongside others.
“They travel on the road to redemption A highway out of yesterday, that tomorrow will bring Like lovers and heroes, birds in the last days of spring We’re only at home when we’re on the wing On the wing
We are young Wandering the face of the Earth Wondering what our dreams might be worth Learning that we’re only immortal For a limited time”
–Dreamline
Yearning, on the other hand, is motivational and self-actualization in process. It’s visualization. It’s being the change you want to see in the world. The ability to reflect, imagine the world you want to inhabit, and take real steps to make it real in some way… that’s yearning. It’s the combination of instinct and clear-sighted determination.
In some very real ways, Rush was the soundtrack to my own determination to at least TRY to expand my world. To get educated. To travel. To live as an artist. To read, think, and feel deeply. Songs like Middletown Dreams and Subdivisions called me to broaden my horizons. The lyrics of Dreamline and Ghost of a Chance made me dream, and then helped me transform those dreams into practical plans.
“Dreams flow across the heartland and feeding on the fires Dreams transport desires Drive you when you’re down Dreams transport the ones who need to get out of town, out of town”
–Middletown Dreams
“Like a million little crossroads Through the back streets of youth Each time we turn a new corner A tiny moment of truth”
–Ghost of a Chance
One of the other realms that Rush inspired me to think about and explore more fully was science. As a young person I was exposed to young earth creationism and other forms of science denial. Songs like Natural Science and, later on, Earthshine, prove that transcendent awe and appreciation for the wonders of the universe are not the purview of religious belief. As I read about the science behind everything from evolution to astrophysics, I unlocked a sense of astonishment and pure joy that had not been available to me before. In reading folx with diverse perspectives, from Stephen J Gould and Annie Dillard to Douglas Adams and Ellen Dissanayake, I found that there was a way to be excited about the glories of space, time, and biology without appealing to supernatural explanations. There’s so much that we can see, hear, touch, measure, and practically explore without needing to imagine things outside of the universe to justify them all.
“Wheel within wheels in a spiral array A pattern so grand and complex Time after time we lose sight of the way Our causes can’t see their effects”
–Natural Science
In some way, the feeling that I’ve always had while listening to Rush is a kind of nostalgia for a past dream of a future where good truths prevail. Where the right thing is done, and everyone can see it. Where the light of knowledge is appreciated. Where attempting to understand “life, the universe, and everything” is given the highest of accolades, appreciated more than fleeting beauty or physical ability. Where honesty, good faith, and mutual aid are seen as true societal values. I think that future is possible, and I think we are actually closer to it than we’ve ever been as a species. In a time where this country is divided and anxious, it’s easy to think that future is not possible. But it objectively is. This is the best time to be alive for most human beings.
This Thanksgiving week, I’m thankful for the world, for life, for music, and for Rush. Here’s a link to a playlist of some of my favorite songs they’ve made:
The beginning of the third week of the month was best, with some striking observations made possible with a short exposure time. Each night the viewing has been a little more difficult, and the tail a little shorter, so it may be beyond easy spotting very soon. It’s worth it, though. Once in a lifetime event here, folx.
I’ve gone out each night just to put my eyes on this ancient thing. Perspective is a quality that exhorts and propels the human heart. Seeing our conflicts and passions in the light of cosmic time and distance offers us the chance for true reflection.
eikonktizo 