Ballard Lavender

Want to feel like you are blissfully walking through a field of lavender in the heart of Provence? Visit our shop!

Just arrived today: fragrant lavender grown right here in Rappahannock County, Virginia.  Ballard Lavender bunches sell for only $12.95 each.  

The shop smells divine, and our shop window is stocked with hanging lavender.

Our special lavender was grown using Provence and Grasso seeds. As the soil here in Rappahannock is very similar to the soil 
of Provence, France, lavender can thrive quite nicely here. We love it!

Come in soon or call to reserve your aromatic bundle of lavender. 

We ship everywhere: 540-675-1411 

Benefit Event for The Rappahannock Food Pantry

BOOK READING & SIGNING / WINE & CHEESE TASTING

"Far Flung and Well Fed: The Food Writing of R.W. Johnny Apple, Jr."

To Benefit The Rappahannock Food Pantry

April 24th, 2010

3-5pm

Here are some images of last night's wonderful benefit event at our shop and gallery.

Betsey Apple was joined by close friends and colleagues who honored the memory and food writings of her husband, legendary New York Times journalist, R.W. "Johnny" Apple Jr.  Author and Food Consultant, Clark Wolf, emceed the event and was joined by John Sullivan, (publisher of the Atlantic Monthly), Terence Smith (award-winning PBS journalist), Marian Burros (N.Y. Times Food Writer and FLAVOR contributor), Bill Plante (CBS News White House Correspondent) who all gave brief readings from the book and conveyed personal experiences and memories of their friend, Johnny Apple, Jr. After the readings each collectively signed the book with Betsey Apple, making it a memorable collector's item for all those in attendance.

Food and wine was generously donated for the event by Chester Gap Cellars, Cowgirl Creamery and Red Truck Bakery.

We were happy to contribute a portion of the day's sales to benefit the Rappahannock Food Pantry. Please check out their Plant a Row website to learn about all they are doing for the Rappahannock community and how you can help.

After our book event, many attendees walked down the street to The Meadows, the historic home of Beverly and John Sullivan, who graciously hosted a huge celebration of local, seasonal food and wine from the state of Virginia, all to benefit the Rappahannock Food Pantry. 

Guests enjoyed a lamb and pig roast accompanied by foods from Rappahannock County, a sampling of the best Virginia wines as chosen by D.C.'s top sommeliers and revealed in the April/May 2010 issue of Flavor magazine. Special guests Mark Russell, Betsey Apple, Clark Wolf, Marian Burros, and wine auctions conducted by John Fox Sullivan, featuring selections from the Inn at LittleWashington's wine cellar and R.W. "Johnny" Apple, Jr.'s esteemed private collection. Check out FLAVOR Magazine website for more details of their fabulous event!

RECENT HISTORY New Paintings by Thomas Mullany

 r.h.ballard gallery in Washington, Virginia presents an exhibition 

of Rappahannock artist Thomas Mullany.

April 10 - May 2

Thomas Mullany, who has lived in Rappahannock County with his family for almost 15 years, has absorbed the visual cues of this beautiful landscape and translates those cues into his own vernacular.  This exhibition, consisting of oil paintings, concentrates on this regional landscape.  All the works in this showing are expressive of his unique vision, yet sit within the context of American realism, using his extensive talent and control of the medium.                                         

Mullany’s work continues to be a master an advanced understanding of paint and light reminiscent of a number of his historical mentors, e.g. Thomas Cole and the Hudson River School, as well as such 20^th century American masters as Edward Hopper, Thomas Hart Benton and Grant Wood.

Robert Ballard, who has been exhibiting Mullany’s work for the past seven years, states, “It never ceases 

to amaze me how Tom can consistently mine imagery that is both unique, varied and timeless and represent 

his ideas so fluently.”

A graduate of the Corcoran School of Art, Mullany lives here with his wife Kerrie (also a Corcoran graduate and an accomplished artist) and two boys, Will and Sam. They have a thriving decorative arts business, Mullany Art Studios, in Washington, VA, and are continually sought-after throughout the region and United States for commissions, murals, sculpture, and faux finishing. 

Mullany has exhibited his work throughout the U.S. in numerous one-person shows in Washington, DC, New York City, and Charlotte NC.  He has received a wide range of public commissions as well, in Virginia, Washington DC, Maryland, New York, and his work is included in numerous public and private collections.

Spring Sale at Ballard's

___________________________________

r. h. ballard

SPRING 
CLEANING 
SALE

Enjoy Spring Savings
March 20-31



20%-40% OFF Select
In-Stock Items:
French Table Linens
Oriental Rugs
Baggalini Totes
Wallets, Clutches
and more...

In store or by phone only

Matisse: The Master of Color

Without a doubt, Henri Matisse is one of a handful of the real giants of modern art.  He is considered "The Master of Color", but also is a master of shape, line, and composition, leading the way to many movements of art in the 20th century.

 

 

During the last years of his life Henri Matisse turned to using scissors, creating large maquettes for a number of works, some for the famous Chapel in Vence, France. These large number of monumental works, which are in such museums as the National Gallery, and the Museum of Modern Art, among others, were made available to a wider audience through the creation of smaller original lithographs.  Matisse’s superb images of shape and color were not published during his lifetime but soon after his death in 1954.  Mourlot, the major printer in Paris of original lithographic works, printed them under Matisse’s close supervision.  Teriade, a close friend, who Matisse worked with for decades, published these original lithographs  in Verve in 1958.  We have many of these for sale in our gallery.

"Draw with the scissors," said Matisse. "The cut is the design, even of the color, the shape that color imposes on itself by its own harmony. The creative movement of the hand operates to cut into what exists rather than to draw in the imaginary."  These works are the culmination of all of the artist's years of working with color and form.  He was able to bring his vision into the refined elements of pure color and shape, with the figurative context remaining as in the exuberant Apollon pictured above.  In addition, the decorative Souvenier d'Ocean below , along with others in this group of work, is as close to abstract design as the artist ever came.

A number of these works are now available at the R.H. Ballard Gallery and represent a compendium of Matisse's last body of work, just as exuberant, if not even more so, than all the work that came before.  

Some years ago in a preface to a showing of Matisse's collages, Teriade wrote: "Pure color, flat color and its corollary, line design, have always directed Matisse's main researches. The miracle is that he has been able to hold passionately to that primary guiding principle, even to the invention of his cut-paper art work of today, a logical conclusion and absolute freeing of the painter.”

Chagall Floats Above the Crowds

The delight that an image by Marc Chagall can bring is most gratifying.

The artist, originally from Russia, has created a body of work that literally floats above the crowd of modern art from the 1st half of the 20th century.  Starting out as a cubist, and retaining aspects of that movement thorough out his career, the artist moved away from the general solidity that cubism brought to a lighter more expressive mode.






Chagall seemed to thrive on personal experience and emotions that carried his work to a realm of expression that was totally unique and defying categorization.  Though many artists since have been influenced by his work, none come to a stage that is as personal and groundbreaking.  His use of personal imagery and self-portraits in a fanciful setting is quite engaging as well as his take on other timeless subjects.  A good example of his portrayal of his relationship to his life, wife and artwork is “Devant St. Jeannet” where he sees himself as a rooster painting a portrait of he and his wife with the small hillside town in southern France.





Chagall’s work often relates to his beloved and adopted home of France, and more specifically of Paris and the south.  In his famous Paris Opera mural, which covers the entire inside of the dome of that building, the artist created a fantasy of images illustrating the joy and magic of the opera.  He created a lithograph for the occasion of a book on the mural that gives a wonderful synopsis of the grand painting "Le Plafond de L'Opera".

The lithographic work of Chagall allows individuals to own an original work without spending huge sums of money.  These two original lithographs are a very small portion of the artist’s work in that medium.   Visit the Chagall page on our website to see a few more examples.