Alice R. Ballard

Who is Alice R. Ballard?

Alice R. Ballard was born June 16, 1945, Florence, South Carolina, and is a working ceramicist based in Greenville, South Carolina. Much of her work is characterized by the organic earthenware forms of closed containers, pinch pots, platters, pods, teapots, totems, small work, vessels and a series she refers to as her white work. Much of her work is finished with terra sigillata. Alice considers her art to be “a reflection of [her] relationship with natural forms. It is often the metamorphosis of Nature's forms, as they change from season to season, that attracts her to that universal world in which differing life forms share similar qualities." Her aesthetic heavily references the mother/child/germination metaphor and also explores the more evocative realm of wonder and awe.

Ballard received her BS degree in design and MFA in painting from the University of Michigan in 1968. It is evident that her background in painting comes heavily into play during surface decoration with her ceramics. Munn uses the pods as a three-dimensional canvas using terra sigallata because it reminds her much more of paint.