Tag Archives: matthew ballou

All These Remainders

Posted on by under Art, Life, Writing

“The creation of legend is never known at the time of its genesis. Only displacement can imbue the past with the aura of sentimentality. Oh, to yearn, to stretch back with every fiber! To feel again that desire; the shrouded figures that play still on those lost, faded shores. Seeing ever so faintly the afternoon sunlight through old windows and recalling the impression of newfound knowledge in those dusty old books. Oh, to squeeze the eyes tightly, if only to glimpse for one moment that gone-ness – to feel it in the pit, to be in that pit, to stay: impossible. Knowing that it all exists only because I can’t stay there. Oh, to regress into my own idealization, to see myself again as I did then…”

“All these remainders have a keening tonality, a tinnitus of sounds, which we are unable to hear outwardly but which our hearts intuit. They are the silent sirens of what has gone before, and they call to us with accolades and accusations.” – from A Mnemonic of Longing, an unpublished essay, 2002-2009.

So ends my remembrance of Ox-Bow, ten years after. So much more could be said, be shown. I’ll leave it at this for now. The text I have shared in these posts is, perhaps (if only to me), my best artwork. It evokes for me the feeling of remembering and the instances that remembrance serves equally well. The words I’ve shared are as present to me as the times they transform and recreate. In turning them over, reading and re-reading them again and again, I sense anew so many true things. In them I know again the many secrets I held all those years ago. The creaking of the Inn, the internal affects of grasses and trees, and the whispers of the wind – which even now (this VERY second!) are stealing across the Lagoon and through the meadow, past the Mary K and over the dunes – are all as true now in these mnemonic words as they were when I wrote those words down. And they rest in me, speaking in me as to one who has glimpsed a deep but unnameable majesty. Darkness sits near (deathly close to) light.

– Matt Ballou, September 1, 2011.

Images from digital photos taken between May and August 2001.

It was a record, that flaming consumer…

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“And the fire was always there with us as well; its cast of gray ash strewn about as a memory of the night past. Here and there on the ground lay also the print of a known foot, the circumference of a bottle, the twisted remains of a cigarette butt. It was a record, that flaming consumer: constantly fed and ever needing more, never totally gone out.”

“The bricks keep it contained, except on those special, pagan nights. Over the years they have become fragile, having seen the fierce flames that flash for three months and then fade for nine many times. The dune now cradles the fire pit in its sandy palm; nature allows us to knead that surface and turn it over with toes and rakes for another day. All the while smoke signals the call over the waters and the trees…” – from A Mnemonic of Longing, an unpublished essay, 2002-2009.

Images from digital photos taken between May and August 2001.

Disembodied Desire: “when the taut nerves mock the numbness of the mind”

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“…the themes of alienation, absence and desire …all of this seems so far removed from the place where I’m talking from that it saddens me, and somehow makes me feel obsolete…kind of dead, elegantly wasted (?). I’m not talking about some slippage from reality but rather some absence of destination, a random lingering, an objectless longing.” 1

“…those blank days, mild and hazy, which melt enamored hearts into tears, when they fret with some vague, twisting pain, when the taut nerves mock the numbness of the mind.” 2

“Disembodied desire. It’s really a constellation of factors, a convergence, I guess. It happens when phenomena stack up right there, at the margin of your consciousness. Then, suddenly, it comes. All that is needed is that particular scent, the angle of the sun, your own freshly dried skin (still supple from the wetness), that old song; it has all been said before. These things usher in a yearning, a hoping. It’s a call from the past, something you’ve lost or, to be honest, something you’ve never really had. You don’t know what it is anyway, but that feeling, that sweet aching is almost enough – almost enough to make life feel right. To feel as if you’ve been called, to feel as if you’ve been wanted, to feel as if you’d been in the right place and had known it – had felt it – at the time. When that song comes on, when the night is just right, it is all there so close to the surface. Ah, but when you reach for it, it disappears! It is as if the exact cognitive mechanism used to focus in on that feeling, or time, or place, causes the very same thing to rush away. There must be some inverse relationship there: the farther you are from logically apprehending the shadowy image the closer you are to the essence of it. When you set up for a closer look even the sense you seemed to have of what you wish for flees from you. It is a small surprise then that wishes can take on such mythic proportions.” – from A Mnemonic of Longing, an unpublished essay, 2002-2009.

1) Robert, Jimmy. Self-Portrait. Appeared in Tema Celeste 96, March/April 2003, page 76.
2) Baudelaire, Charles. From the Francis Scarfe English translation of the poem Cloud-dappled Sky, 1857.
 
Images from digital photos taken between May and August 2001.

Transpositions Feature: A Short Essay on Faith, Art and Teaching

Posted on by under Art, Life, Teaching

I was recently invited to present an essay of reflections on teaching and faith by the Institute for Theology, Imagination, and the Arts at the University of Saint Andrews in Scotland. The piece has been made available online, so check it out:

Generosity of Spirit: A Perspective on Faith, Art, and Teaching

And here are a couple shots by Columbia Missourian photographer Michelle Kannan, taken during my Summer Session class this past July. I’ve never had any documentation of myself teaching before (other than audio), so the images that Michelle took are nice for me. I think they capture some of the excitement and passion I try to bring to the classroom.

The Ox-Bow Studio

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“Image-making in this place seemed axiomatic. You live to make. Or, at least, in living you make. Let us take the ninety-degree turn twice and go back to where we once were, shall we? It was fun, challenging, and worthy; the most worthy and real thing I did that summer. It is the most abiding thing I did, even now. Alas, all the rest is dust, chaff, and stubble – ‘which are burnt and which the wind drives away’ – though it all was so beautiful while strewn on the ash pile there. And we, like the old pagans, went down to color it and cover our nakedness with it.” – from A Mnemonic of Longing, an unpublished essay, 2002-2009.

Above: the studio I used during the Summer of 2001 while at Ox-Bow on a Fellowship Residency. Click for larger view.

Below: a sign one of my fellow Fellows left for me one day. I’ve saved it all these years. I have a feeling who left it on my chair that night, but was never sure. Click for larger view.

Two New Catalogs

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I’ve recently collected some bodies of work into small catalog format. The Lamentations 3 Series, from 2009-2011, and shown recently at Gordon College in Massachusetts, is collected along with images of the copper plates in process, some installation shots, and an essay that I gave as a lecture at Gordon during the opening for my show there. Click the image below for more info.

The second book is a collection of some of the 100 or so Locus Series works that I created between 1999 and 2001. I present about 20 images along with a short essay I wrote in 2001 when I concluded the series. I also wrote another short contemplation this year to reflect on what the Locus Series has meant to me. Click the image below for more info.

Opening At 930 Art Center, Louisville, KY

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My show with Tim Lowly at the 930 Art Center in Louisville, KY opened yesterday. It was a great event. Below I’m posting some general pictures.

1 ) The title wall with my piece “Seedbed #2”.

2 ) “Diviner” by Tim Lowly

3 ) General view of the gallery space.

4 ) General view with three of Lowly’s 39 inch diameter tondos near two of my smaller works.

5 ) General view of the backside of the gallery.

6 ) Two of my works.

7 ) A Detail of “Spinning” by Tim Lowly.

8 ) A shot of the crowd.

Also, after the artist talk/discussion that Tim and I led, we had two acts perform: the Sandpaper Dolls, and Tim’s Baby Mountain. Good stuff!

The Larry Show Postcards!!!

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So the upcoming “Larry” show, curated by the awesome Sloane Snure Paullus, has postcards that solicit drawing upon said postcard (to be exhibited alongside the work of 40+ artists [including me and some of my best students] at the George Caleb Bingham Gallery at the University of Missouri this summer)… Below are some of my very own “The Larry Show” postcard drawings. Enjoy, and click for larger versions :)

And here’s the verso, giving details about the show… I hope you can make it. There’ll be a whole wall of visitor-submitted card drawings (including a few more of my own), so be sure to see the show!


Beginning Color Drawing Spring 2011 Group Project

Posted on by under Art, Life, Teaching

Once again, my Beginning Color Drawing class at the University of Missouri has created a large work together as a capstone to the semester. Seeing these big drawings happen has been a very rewarding aspect of my teaching.

This one is obviously a copy of one of Chuck Close‘s self portraits. And below is how it looks from the hallway. Click on the images to see them in larger glory!

These are mostly fun, low-pressure way to create something unifying after spending the whole semester developing and practicing skills. I love  this project. Click here and here to see some past efforts!