Website

So anyway, I'm no longer cheap and am getting my portfolio online. :P Stay tuned for more.

You're Beautiful

sketchbook - page 2

sketchbook

page 1

Website Design On-Line

My first corporate site design is now online. It's for a start-up gaming company that works in sci-fi games. Go check it out.

Brainstem Games

Me in the Simpsons

construction

Please ignore any and all current flaws in the website at the moment. I'm currently restructuring and designing this site.

Image Prints

Whenever we're done with a project in class, we normally have to mount the work and then they place it around the school somewhere on an easel. Evidently, my school had an open house this past weekend because when I came to class Monday, someone had seen one of mine and decided he wanted to buy it. So I printed one off for him (cost me a dollar the price gouging excuse for a school print room) and then he paid me 45 dollars for it. And thus, a new era in my life has occurred. I will now be sure that I can make prints of my work from now on.

prints = easy money

Astonishment

Perhaps all I pursue is astonishment and so I try to awaken only astonishment in my viewers. Sometimes "beauty" is a nasty business.
~M.C. Escher

America

Well, son, I’ll tell you:
Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair…
But all the time
I’se been a-climbin’ on...

This excerpt from “Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes shows how many in America feel about themselves. We think of Americans as being enduring and courageous people in our literature.

Eudora Welty. In “A Worn Path,” by Eudora Welty, she tells the tale of an older grandmother who is traveling far from home to acquire the medicine needed for her grandson. This woman endures walking a long way, while needing a cane, through the country and into the city. She had even forgotten why she had gone to the trouble to go to the pharmacy by the time she got there. Welty shows that through everything, the woman stuck through with it no matter what, even despite not remembering a clear motive.

Langston Hughes. Langston Hughes, in “Mother to Son,” also shows this obstinate attitude and strength in endurance that Americans give themselves. A mother is writing to her son about how life throws obstacles in your path and that he should do as she did and continue treading along through it all. You shouldn’t even stop to rest but continue plodding on.

But we are fearfully and wonderfully made, and we glorious Americans will occasionally astonish the God that created us when we get a fair start.
-Mark Twain

Mark Twain. Another writer, Mark Twain, showed our American ideals through his writing. In his books, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, he tells the stories of common boys and people that are no different than many living on the Mississippi today. He tells of them overcoming barriers as well as physical obstacles like the river itself or the weather. He also challenged the way people oppress one another.

Individualism. All of these authors show in their writing how Americans view life as a rugged path that can be tamed and beat down to our will; that we, as Americans, can overcome anything. Our cockiness and outright ignorance of others is one of America’s greatest strengths and faults at the same time. We are individuals who strive to make our lives what we want them to be. We have a lot of self-confidence as a nation and probably think more of ourselves than we should. More than likely, this is one of the reasons why other countries dislike us so much.

Americans are a strong people.

Portrait of Twins

I did a portrait of my two cousins (nonidentical twins) for my aunt. It was done in nupastel and was close to 18x24.

Finished Grocery Image

So here it is:

Latest Illustration

And a produce project that I had to do for Digital Illustration
(see above for finished version)

Quote of the Day

I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. ~Albert Einstein

Too bad not many school teachers know this.

Vectorized Self-Portrait

The Definition of Art

Art [ärt] n. The skilful, systematic arrangement or adaptation of means for the attainment of some end, especially by human endeavor as opposed to natural forces.1

If you open up a dictionary, more than likely, this is something like what you’ll read. If you ask an actual artist, there’s a much different answer. Ad Reinhardt stated, “Art is art. Everything else is everything else.” Ani Difranco said, “Art is why I get up in the morning; my definition ends there.”2 Quite simply, many don’t have an answer. Why don’t they? Why does this simple, three-letter word stump those that supposedly practice it?

In the world, most artists and art educators hold on to the view that art can’t be defined as if it were their religion.3 They reason that all the pieces we call art today do not all have a distinctive feature in common. If this feature did exist, then anything with this feature was art and anything without it is not.

But if this holds true, that there is no true definition, then there is no way to reject anything as being art. Basically, anything you say is art. You could kill a cow, surround it by its own innards, take photos, and call them art. You could take a canvas, make a scribble in the middle, and call it art. Are these examples really art? I hardly think so. So there must be SOME definition.

If there was no real definition, then why are there art schools? How can you teach that that has no meaning? There would be no rules, no guidelines, and no standards. Anyone could be a so-called “great artist” based upon that persons view on themselves. Imagine what a mess teachers would be in if they didn’t know what life was in biology.

Perhaps we should take a look at some supposed “art.” Barnett Newman, in his 1950 piece called “Eve,” hardly fits the description I think of when I think of true art.4 This piece is basically a large red rectangle with a brown edge. There is no real skill involved. There is no reason why someone not an artist couldn’t have created this piece. I’m not even sure it is that aesthetically pleasing. Is this art?

Maybe another artist, Kazuo Shiraga, could show us what art is. His work includes large paintings that he used his feet to paint. It reminds me of kindergartners using their feet with finger paint. Is art really just scribbles? Is art just shapes?

The Turner Prize, the United Kingdom’s highest honor for artistic achievement should be a good place to look for art… or so you would think. The 2002 Turner Prize (also consists of $40,000) was given to Keith Tyson for taking discarded computers and putting them in a large, black box. The other finalists were Fiona Banner and Liam Gillick. Banner had entered a billboard that simply has pornographic text written on it. Gillick made a ceiling of colored squares not much unlike what my basement ceiling looks like. It just isn’t white. Previous winners include a dead sheep in a tank of formaldehyde. It was put there by Damian Hirst. Chris Ofili “painted” a portrait of the Virgin Mary with elephant dung. Martin Creed has won with a white room with a single white light bulb that blinks. Tracy Emin entered a bed soiled with condoms and tampons and was in utter disarray.5 These are the prize-winning, great pieces of artwork that represent our time period?

“The purpose of art is to create an emotional response in the person that is exposed to that art. And there are three categories of art; bad art, good art and great art. Bad art will elicit no emotional response in the person that is exposed to it, i.e.; a song you hear in an elevator and it does nothing to you, a picture on a wall that gives you the same emotional response as if the wall had been blank, a movie that chews up time. Good art will make you feel an emotion that you have felt before; you see a picture of a forest and you remember the last time you went fishing with your dad, you hear a song about love and you remember the last time you were in love. Great art will make you feel an emotion you have never felt before; seeing the pieta, the world famous sculpture by Michelangelo, can cause someone to feel the pain of losing a child even if they’ve never had one. And when you’re trying for these emotions the easiest one to trigger is anger. Anyone can do it. Go into the street, throw a rock at someone, you will make them angry. The emotions of love, empathy and laughter are much harder to trigger, but since they operate on a deeper level, they bring a much greater reward.” ~Paul O’Neill6

Paul O’Neill of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra stated that art pulls an emotion out of the viewer or audience. Personally, I agree with this viewpoint on art. There is more to it though. There is skill involved. Those artists who can spin or change reality in their pieces are held in higher regard to me.

Salvador Dalí is one of those artists I believe. He was a surreal painter who painted impossible scenes that though impossible… seemed real. If you look at his piece, “Reflection of Elephants,” you see a lake with trees popping out of it in the middle of some canyons. There are also three swans swimming in the lake. Looking at it more closely, you’ll start to notice all the things that couldn’t really happen. A man is as tall as canyons. The swans’ reflections look like elephants. The tree limbs bend in ways that trees normally wouldn’t. The clouds take on unreal forms. Despite all of this, it blends together smoothly and elegantly with a flair that few artists could hope to achieve.

So then what are the parts that define art? The first is skill. It takes practice. You’re not going to learn how to create a masterpiece overnight. The second part is presentation. Art is visual. Color, shape, texture, proportion, weight, emphasis, and more all mesh together to create a composition. Art is always meant for someone to view it. Even if that someone is only yourself. Concept is another part. It is displaying an idea or emotion to the viewer. Sometimes there’s even a message behind the piece that’s more than just a feeling. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then there’s a lot you could say in one or two paintings. It communicates to the viewer. The artwork also needs to be coherent. It doesn’t take any skill at all to create a mess.

So is there a set definition for art? Not exactly… but there are attributes that make a piece of artwork better than others. When you use all these attributes together and with purpose, then you can start to call your work art.


1. “Art.” Funk & Wagnalls Standard Dictionary. 6th ed. 1963.
2. http://quotes.prolix.nu
3. http://www.aristos.org
4. http://www.tate.org.uk
5. http://www.art-for-a-change.com
6. http://www.trans-siberian.com

Bio-Sketch

Brett R. Ballard was born in Middletown, OH, in 1985. Born in the art world, Brett continued to live in it and is a student attending the Art Institute of Ohio-Cincinnati. He'll graduate with a degree in Graphic Design in 2008.

He began his artistic career early in life always thriving on creation. He's worked as a portraiture artist and has done many freelance pieces. His favorite medium is pastels however his work encompasses art– paintings, charcoal, graphite, pastel– and design– desktop publishing, web design, advertisements, and other graphical designs.

Brett's goal in his pieces is to capture the unordinary in the ordinary and to spin a new view on old sights. After establishing himself as an accomplished designer, his goal in career is to create his own business designing advertisements and other graphics for others.

Brett currently resides in West Chester, near Cincinnati, OH. His most recent work includes portraits for the Pierce family and for the Fernandez family, both of whom live in Middletown, OH. Currently, he is working on a still-life painting for the Campbell family of Monroe also in OH.