Natalie Ball

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| name = Natalie Ball

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| birth_date = {{birth year and age|1980}}{{cite news |last1=Steinkopf-Frank |first1=Hannah |title=Existence as Resistance |url=https://www.heraldandnews.com/news/local_news/existence-as-resistance/article_40d89b35-5a5c-5623-9e1b-7e2ab02ef88a.html |accessdate=23 May 2019 |work=Herald and News |date=10 Oct 2017}}

| birth_place = Portland, Oregon

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| training = MFA Yale School of Art (2018), MA Massey University (2010), BA University of Oregon (2005)

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| awards = Betty Bowen Award (2018), Lilla Jewel Fund Award, Santo Foundation Award, Joan Shipley Award, Oregon Arts Commission Fellowship

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Natalie Ball (born 1980) is a Klamath/Modoc interdisciplinary artist based in Chiloquin, Oregon.{{cite web |title=2018 Betty Bowen Award Winner: Natalie Ball |url=https://museumnetwork.sothebys.com/en/museums/seattle-art-museum/exhibitions/2018-betty-bowen-award-winner-natalie-ball |website=Museum Network |publisher=Sotheby's |accessdate=23 May 2019 |date=13 April 2019}}

Background

Born in Portland, Oregon, Ball is enrolled in the Klamath Tribes. She is also of African-American, Modoc, and Anglo-American descent.{{cite book |last1=Sabzalian |first1=Leilani |title=Indigenous Children's Survivance in Public Schools |date=2019 |publisher=Routledge |location=New York |isbn=978-11383-8451-4 |page=196 n. 10 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lOeIDwAAQBAJ&q=%22Natalie+Ball%22&pg=PA180}} Ball is a descendant of Kientpaush, also known as Captain Jack (1837–1873), the chief who led the Modocs to fight the United States in the 1872 Modoc War.{{cite journal |journal=Red Ink |title=Contributors |date=2002 |volume=11–13 |page=118 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mRUrAQAAIAAJ&q=%22Natalie+Ball%22+Klamath}}{{cite web |title=Natalie Ball: 2016 Fellow Recipient |url=https://www.oregonartscommission.org/fellowship-profile/natalie-ball |website=Oregon Arts Commission |accessdate=23 May 2019}} Her grandfather was a painter, and her aunt Peggy Ball, was a quiltmaker. Her family moved from Klamath lands to Portland, Oregon, after the Klamath Termination Act was passed in 1954.

Ball has three children, including daughter Lofanitani Aisea.{{cite web |title=Indigenous, Race, and Ethnic Studies |url=https://ethnicstudies.uoregon.edu/natalie-ball |website=University of Oregon Department of Indigenous, Race, and Ethnic Studies |publisher=University of Oregon |accessdate=3 July 2020}}

Education

Ball earned her bachelor's degree in art and ethnic studies from the University of Oregon, and her master's degree in Maori Visual Arts from Massey University in Palmerston North, New Zealand.{{Cite web|url=https://www.massey.ac.nz/massey/learning/programme-course/programme.cfm?prog_id=93131|title=Master of Māori Visual Arts (Master of Māori Visual Arts) - 2019 - Massey University|last=New Zealand|first=Massey University|website=www.massey.ac.nz|language=en|access-date=2019-05-23}} She earned her MFA from Yale University School of Art in painting and printmaking in 2018.

Artwork

File:Bang bang, 2019, Natalie Ball at Rubell 2021.jpg in 2021]]

Ball's art practice includes installation art, performance art, mixed-media textile art, sculpture, painting, and printmaking. Her textiles often combine stitched words with quilts and dolls that draw upon Modoc and Klamath history. Her aunt taught her quilt making when Ball was young, inspiring the adult artist to challenge assumptions about materials, matrilineal craft, and textiles.{{cite web |title=Crow's Shadow welcomes Natalie Ball 0 |url=http://firstamericanartmagazine.com/natalie-ball-crows-shadow/ |website=First American Art Magazine |accessdate=3 July 2020 |date=October 22, 2019}}

Ball's installation at the 2015 One Flaming Arrow Indigenous Art, Music, & Film Festival in Portland, Oregon incorporated a variety of materials. These included coyote heads, Ball's handmade quilts, and original 19th century newspaper clippings about her great-great-grandfather Kientpaush. Oregon Public Broadcasting noted that freshly cut wood in the installation, "Mapping Coyote Black," rendered the gallery "thick and sweet with piney smells."{{cite web |last1=Baer |first1=April |title=Contemporary Native Artists Come Together For The One Flaming Arrow Festival |url=https://www.opb.org/radio/programs/state-of-wonder/article/one-flaming-arrow-festival-sets-it-off/ |website=State of Wonder |publisher=Oregon Public Broadcasting |accessdate=3 July 2020 |date=June 4, 2015}}

Of the installation, Ball has said, "Everyone knows that Coyote is a trickster: intelligent and powerful, and at times Coyote plays the fool. I offer Coyote to viewers as a woman, the avatar of myself as an artist."

Ball characterizes motherhood as central to her identity as an artist and writes that her work "examines internal and external discourses that shape Indian identity."{{cite web |title=Natalie Ball |url=https://factoronto.org/participants/mixed-media/natalie-ball/ |website=Feminist Art Collective |accessdate=23 May 2019}} Ball cites performance artist Coco Fusco as an inspiration, particularly Fusco's influential performance piece "Two Undiscovered Amerindians Visit the West," created in collaboration with Guillermo Gómez-Peña.

Art career

Ball has exhibited internationally, including in Hungary and New Zealand.{{Cite web|url=http://www.hungarian-multicultural-center.com/id27.html|title=Vizivarosi Gallery 2008, 2004|website=www.hungarian-multicultural-center.com|access-date=2019-05-23}} She was included in the 15th Sharjah Biennial: Thinking Historically in the Present.{{cite web | url=https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/sharjah-biennial-2023-artist-list-1234625481/ | title=Sharjah Biennial Names over 150 Artists for Long-Awaited Okwui Enwezor–Conceived 2023 Edition | date=18 April 2022 }}

Nationally, Ball has exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art,{{cite web | url=https://whitney.org/exhibitions/natalie-ball | title=Natalie Ball: Bilwi naats Ga'niipci }}Seattle Art Museum,{{Cite web|url=https://www.seattleartmuseum.org/Exhibitions/Details?EventId=65236|title=Events Detail|website=www.seattleartmuseum.org|access-date=2019-05-23}} Portland Art Museum,{{Cite web|url=https://www.oregonartscommission.org/fellowship-profile/natalie-ball|title=Natalie Ball {{!}} Oregon Arts Commission|website=www.oregonartscommission.org|access-date=2019-05-23}} IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts,{{Cite web|url=https://iaia.edu/event/stands-fist-contemporary-native-women-artists/|title=Stands with a Fist: Contemporary Native Women Artists > Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA)|website=Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA)|language=en-US|access-date=2019-05-23}} SOMArts,{{Cite web|url=http://temporaryartreview.com/visions-into-infinite-archives-at-somarts/|title=Visions Into Infinite Archives at SOMArts|date=2016-01-29|website=Temporary Art Review|language=en-US|access-date=2019-05-23}} Disjecta Contemporary Art Center,{{cite web |title=Collaborators & Colleagues: Natalie Ball |url=https://www.pewcenterarts.org/people/natalie-ball |website=Pew Center for Arts & Heritage |accessdate=23 May 2019 |date=23 May 2017}} and the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, where she created an installation, Mapping Coyote Black in 2015.{{cite web |title=Mapping Coyote Black · Natalie Ball |url=http://www.nermanmuseum.org/exhibitions/2015-02-05-ball-natalie-mapping-coyote-black.html |website=Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art |accessdate=23 May 2019}}

Awards and honors

Ball's many awards include the MRG Foundation's Lilla Jewel Fund Award, Santo Foundation Award, and Oregon Arts Commission's Joan Shipley Award (2016). Also in 2016, the Oregon Arts Commission named Ball an Individual Artist Fellow. In 2018, the Seattle Art Museum gave her the Betty Bowen Award. In 2019, Crow's Shadow Institute of the Arts awarded her a Golden Spot Residency Award.{{cite web |title=Art Alumna Named 2019 Golden Spot Residency Award Recipient |url=https://design.uoregon.edu/art-alumna-named-2019-golden-spot-residency-award-recipient |website=College of Design |date=12 April 2019 |publisher=University of Oregon |accessdate=23 May 2019}}