Ball honored as December Artist of the Month
The Bella Vista Arts Council is pleased to honor Sally Ball as the December 2019 Artist of the Month.
Ball will be honored at a public reception from 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 12, at the Artist Retreat Center, located at 13467 Lookout Drive in Bella Vista.
Ball is a dedicated artist who creates works of self-expression in a wide variety of media but specializes in the fiber arts. She began drawing at a young age and cannot remember a time when she was not creating. For her 16th birthday, her parents gave her the gift of private drawing lessons, and it was this experience that set her on the path to choosing art as a way of life.
In college, Ball pursued a bachelor’s degree in fine arts in studio art, splitting her focus between painting, metalsmithing and art history. These three continue to be a passion for Ball and each has an influence on how she creates in her studio to this day. Early in her artistic career Ball created paintings in watercolor, Prismacolor and acrylic, working diligently to improve the representation skills needed to create realistic mixed media paintings that reflect the elements of nature that are so important to Ball’s work today.
In 2008, in two unrelated experiences, Ball learned to spin yarn and to wet felt. Learning to work in the new media of fibers breathed fresh life into Ball’s artistic practice and changed the way she viewed painting. Today she still chooses to take her inspiration from nature and creates in a style that combines realism and abstraction. Her heavily layered works of fiber art often contain a variety of fibers sourced from around the world and incorporate handspun yarns, custom fiber blends and dyed wools and other fibers that Ball creates as part of her studio process.
Her most recent series of work is called the Illumination Series and is inspired by the illuminated manuscripts and calligraphy that Ball loves so much. For this series, Ball is developing her own alphabet and working on silk backgrounds to create works of art that are visually complex and opulent.
When she is not creating, Ball enjoys traveling to fiber shows in the area and in Texas, where she teaches felting classes and sells her custom fibers to other fiber artists. Ball also teaches felting classes locally and will be offering two classes next year at the Eureka Springs School of the Arts.
The Bella Vista Arts Council, an advisory board to the Bella Vista City Council, was created by the City Council in February 2016 to help promote the arts in Bella Vista. The board established an Artist of the Month program, in which selected artists and their work will be showcased to the public. Three volunteers serve on our selection committee — Sara Parnell, Sara Bainbridge and Margaret Correll. The committee chooses each month from qualified artists, who must be residents of Bella Vista. To submit your name or other nominations for consideration, contact the Art Council through email at artscouncil@bellavistaar.gov.