Background
Born 1961 to Swiss Parents, Doris and Alex Bally who had just immigrated to Chicago so that Alex could study at Illinois Institute of Technology. Doris took classes from Brent Kington at the Southern Illinois University. The family moved to Corning, NY where Alex worked as a designer and his brother Nico was born. The family then moved on to Pittsburgh where Alex began working as an industrial designer for silversmith turned designer Peter Muller-Munk and then on to Westinghouse's Industrial Design Division. Boris Bally was raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Bally's interest in the metal arts began at age 13 through a class at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, taught by Steve Korpa, where he learned to make jewelry and later brass knuckles and throwing stars. His interest in the crafts continued to grow as he experienced the industry through more classes and meeting and working for local jewelers and artists including Jeff Whisner and Ronald McNeish. He continued taking classes at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, won a scholarship for the 1977 Pennsylvania Governor's School for the Arts. In 1979, he graduated early from Carlynton High School and apprenticed for Alexander Schaffner Golsdschmied in Basel, Switzerland. He then returned to the USA and attended the Tyler School of Art, and transferred to Carnegie Mellon University where he received his BFA. Through his travels and apprenticeships, Bally showed an interest in the more extreme and mechanical aspect of art and design especially in radical new approaches to material use.
Initially, Bally focused on jewellery and flatware to establish himself as a designer and artist. Continuing his interest, he expanded into scrap objects and road signs.
In 1994 he met Lynn E Taylor who was attending Pitt medical school and in 1997 they were married and moved to Providence. RI where she became an intern and resident at the Brown Medical School. In 1998, Bally purchased the Ryan Post building on the Olneyville and Mount Pleasant town line. In the following years, he rehabilitated it to become their home and his studio. [1] [2] [3]
