![]() ![]() With the music of 11 th- century nun and composer Hildegard von Bingen playing in the background, Ballard diligently pores over her work in a small studio in Port Moody, B.C., a sacred artist on a mission to connect herself and others with the divine. ![]() “I would ask God, and ask the angels,” she said. Catholic will publish a series on features on other members of the Epiphany Sacred Arts Guild over the next several weeks.When iconographer Patricia Ballard is stuck on a challenging pattern or discouraged by a mistaken stroke of the brush, she looks to heaven for help. “You don’t own your talents, you share them. The angels and saints are present to them in the church,” she said with a It still takes her aback when she sees someone Speaks to you in words and paintings speak to you in images, but it’s the same The images are visual counterparts of what the Scripture is saying. You’re helping people participate in the Mass and Privilege to be able to do artwork that will be placed in a church,” she said. She finds it incredibly humbling when aĬhurch takes interest in a finished piece. Particularly interested in, working meticulously for years onĪ piece until she is satisfied with it, then contacting interested buyers. “You’re lifting people up to see things from the invisible world.”ĭoes not usually take commissions, opting instead to write an icon she’s Icons “is a completely different way of working” compared to modern painting. She anticipates her current project, which she began in the summer, will take Worked on her current masterpiece, a work inspired by Giacomo di Mino’sġ4th-century work The Coronation of the Virgin.īallard, it takes a lot of time, prayer, and meditation to complete an icon. What she’s thinking about as she’s beingĬrowned and what it cost her to be in that position,” said Ballard as she “As I’m working, I’m thinking about, forĮxample, what Mary is going through. Immerses herself in her subject every time she pulls out a burnisher, paintīrush, or tube of glue. Art as prayerīallard, who attends daily Mass, believes prayer and strong personal devotion give her Patricia Ballard's The Annunciation, seen in the chapel at the John Paul II Pastoral Centre. “It’s all mystical music, and it comes from the Sense of being one with the past and one with the future.”Īs she works, Ballard also listens to music from that era, playing Gregorian chant on a little CD You’re carrying on this tradition of the Church. Something about working in the same materials that were done a thousand yearsĪgo. Made from the skin of a rabbit), egg yolk, wine, red clay, and powdered Modern paints for traditional materials including rabbit skin glue (literally Stephen, her public works include The Annunciation, onĭisplay in the chapel at the John Paul II Pastoral Centre, and the refurbished To be a bit more realistic, a bit more natural. Mystical, otherworldly feel about it, but at the same time it’s just beginning Patricia Ballard writes an icon inspired by Giacomo di Mino's The Coronation of the Virgin. Renaissance, when iconography started to embrace less rigid, more natural Ballard discovered her favourite era was early I focused onįurthered her studies in sacred art with Vladimir Blagonadezhdin of theīyzantine tradition, Port Moody iconographer Frank Turner, and European master Embracing early Renaissanceīallard immersed herself in iconography, the more she realized she would leave Stephen’s Church in North Vancouver in 2000. Petersburg Russian tradition and was amazed she could create art that looked like it had fallen out of the Middle Ages.īallard found herself taking more courses in iconography and writing her first The workshop under Vladislav Andreyev of the St. Were short of people, so I said I would try.” She took I never thought I would be doing icons, or even wanted to. More religious than a pipe player in the moonlight – until she took a workshopĪsked to do it. Music carries you from earth up to heaven.”īallard has always been religious, she never thought her art would become any Or, youĬould see it as a soul, very at peace with the universe and one with God. “You can take it literally: a girl, playing a pipe in the moonlight. Secular piece with religious tones is The Pipe Player, Moon, and Stars. It’s asking us to return to God in simplicity and purity.” With a sun, a symbol of the divine, shining in the sky. Subjects were about the individual soul and his or her relationship to God,”Įxample, The First Snow shows a child figure standing in a snowy field, Her art was secular, but always had an element of the religious. Ontario in her 20s and 30s, Ballard would exhibit her work once or even twice a Patricia Ballard and one of her early works, The Juggler. ![]()
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