Arts & Entertainment

Alice Ballard Exhibit Opens Sept. 8 at Pickens County Museum

Exhibition of sculptural work opens with reception on Sept. 8

The Pickens County Museum of Art & History will be presenting two new exhibitions from September 8 through November 8, 2012. Please join us from 6:00 until 8:00 p.m. on September 8 as we host a reception to meet the artist featured in “Work by Alice Ballard”. Also opening that evening will be the exhibit “Now and Then; Some Photographers’ Work”. Both exhibitions will continue through November 8, 2012.

Alice Ballard received her Master’s Degree in Art from the University of Michiganbefore becoming a professional artist and educator. She received a Fulbright Grant to study in India, was one of 8 ceramic artists to be invited to the international Ceramic Colony in Resen, Macedonia, studied ceramics for a summer in China, received a South Carolina Arts Commission Individual Fellowship and has work currently traveling nationally in “Tradition/Innovation American Masterpieces of Southern Craft and Traditional Art”, organized by Art South and funded by the NEA. She is represented by Hodges Taylor in Charlotte, NC, Blue Spiral 1 in Asheville, Hampton III in Greenville, SC and Tao Evolution in Hong Kong. She has had solo shows at theMint Museum, the Greenville County Museum of Art and has work in the collection of the Renwick Museum of the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC,Arrowmont, the Mint Museum and the Greenville Museum of Art. Her teaching experience includes Penland School of Crafts, Odyssey in Asheville, NC, the SC Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities, Francis Marion University in Florence, SC, USC Myrtle Beach, SC, and the currently teaches part-time at ChristChurch Episcopal School in Greenville, SC where she currently lives and maintains a studio.

Speaking of her work, Ballard says, “My art is a reflection of my relationship with natural forms. These forms come to me on hikes and on walks in my neighborhood, while I am at work in my garden, on visits to the produce section of the grocery store or, appear as gifts from friends who share my fascination with beauty inherent in Nature’s abundant variety of forms. To be more specific, it is often the metamorphosis of Nature’s forms, as they change from season to season, that attracts me. Those seasonal changes are like the human capacity for spiritual renewal and rebirth. What astounds me both as an artist and as a human being is man’s and nature’s ability to withstand horrific abuse and to regenerate new life, to put forth a magnificent new budding.”

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She Continued. “When I am at work in my studio, I spend countless hours contemplating a particular form in order to feel its energy. This quiet observation is like a meditation and allows me to capture the essence of what have felt and observed. Then I begin to bring the form to life in clay. This whole process is not unlike what I experience in my garden. It is all about looking closely as I watch things emerge from the soil and begin to grow and then responding. Clay sculpture requires the same kind of time, patience and careful observation. Both need to be brought to life through a process that combines knowledge, skill, intuition and nurturing.”

The Pickens County Museum of Art & History is funded in part by Pickens County, members and friends of the museum and a grant from the South Carolina Arts Commission, which receives support from the National Endowment for the Arts.

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Located at the corner of Hwy. 178 at 307 Johnson Street in Pickens SC, the museum is open Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 9:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m., Thursdays from 9:00 a.m. until 7:30 p.m. and Saturdays from 9:00 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. Admission is free but donations are welcomed.

For more information please contact the museum at (864) 898-5963.


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