Jack-of-all-trades artist creates gallery and music combo

Photo by: Kimmy Coyne
Serial killers are feared by most Americans, but are nevertheless studied and loved by a few like SCC student Clayton Ballard and his grandmother.
They call each other at night when serial killer stories appear, they enjoy talking about serial killers, and Ballard likes to draw portraits of them.
Ballard is now showing a collection of 15 charcoal serial killer portraits at a local café. He inaugurated the show with a concert about failed relationships and some serial killer related songs on the eve of Valentine’s day.
Ballard is not glorifying the acts of serial killers, he is simply intrigued by what they do and people’s reactions to them.
“It’s an intriguing thing because most of us can’t do what they do: kill someone,” Ballard said.
The serial killer collection started out as a school project Ballard had this past fall quarter. He since drew 15 serial killers, and 15 family members with different expressions and elements around them. “I tried to manipulate what people think with the way I draw them” Ballard said.
In the first show of these works Ballard printed ballots, and had the viewers go around and vote on which portrait was that of a killer, or his family. He wasn't just showing art, he was creating controversy.
According to Ballard "good art always challenges people's emotions. They can get upset...it makes them react."
“The whole point was to get people to talk about it," Ballard said. “If I would have chosen a normal topic then people would have forgotten.”
Ballard, a "creator" as he calls himself, is a multi-talented artist. He does more than just draw serial killer portraits, he writes poems, writes dark folk songs, plays accordeon, harmonica, guitar and piano, plus he sings and dreams about writing "that novel" someday.
Ballard started exploring the arts when he was a little kid, drawing and playing piano, which he learned from his grandmother. Later, when he was 16 years old, he abandoned the visual arts for 15 years while he learned music theory and experimented with different instruments.
Ballard always found pop music forgettable, and decided to write puppy love lyrics to metal rock tunes, and apocalyptic lyrics to mellow folk music.
Throughout his 15 years of musical exploration Ballard recorded two solo albums, and is currently working on his third solo album. On the upcoming album, he sings, and plays most of the instruments to a folk style of music, with stories about shotguns, among other topics.
He also started a band with his brother and some friends called "the wRIGHT BROTHERS". And no, this is not a typo, the band name is actually spelled with a small caps "W", because according to Ballard they are the right Wright brothers, and for him capitalization is just a way of showing importance and respect.
"the wRIGHT BROTHERS" makes allusion to the Wright brothers who invented the first successful airplane, and perform shows with flight suits, goggles and white contact lenses; they are supposed to be dead fighter pilots from WWI.
But music is not just music, and art is not just art. For Ballard these are all creations, and after 15 years of being a full time musician Ballard decided to come to SCC to study visual arts and create. Working on his solo album, and taking painting and drawing classes Ballard started to realize that he could put those worlds together.
Ballard has dedicated each of his two album covers to two of his favorite visual artists, Salvador Dalí, and Francisco Goya. Recently he even picked covers and wrote music to match his serial killer subject. He's starting to mix art forms, in a way that they all compliment each other to enrich the audience's experience.

If you're interested in Ballard's serial killer show, go to the Laughing Ladies café on 17551 15th Avenue Northeast, and to check out his music tracks and follow his artistic track try his solo and band myspace sites. http://www.myspace.com/claytonballard
http://www.myspace.com/rightbrothers