Lori Ballard in her studio at the WTCA. Photo: MV

Since word has it that there will be no closing reception for A Sense of Space at the West Tampa Center for the Arts, I thought I’d bring you just a taste—or two—of some of the creative endeavors currently under way in the former cigar factory. (I also spent some time with Mitzi Gordon and her installation, which I’ll describe in another post.)

Earlier this year, photographer Lori Ballard won an individual artist grant from the Arts Council of Hillsborough County. With the support of the grant, she has begun to turn about a dozen of her circus and carnival photographs into 40” x 60” canvas banners. The pieces are meant to evoke the traditional banners of circus sideshow acts used to attract visitors on their way from the midway into the big top, Ballard says. She has each banner handmade by a Tampa company then applies her images in segments to the canvas by iron-on transfer.

From 1999-2007, Ballard served as official photographer of the Florida State Fair, where she met her boyfriend Jim. Traveling with Jim, who owns a sideshow, to circuses and carnivals around the country, Ballard began documenting the people behind the acts. (One of them, Elaine Hall, a 5th generation circus performer who works with bears, is pictured wearing a bejeweled headdress on the banner behind Ballard.) The images may have a vintage feel (at least to my eyes), but they’ve all been taken in the past couple of years.

The banners are scheduled to be displayed at next year’s Ybor Festival of the Moving Image in April. For more information about Ballard’s work, go to lballardphoto.net.