Fine art meets football at SMU home games

For Aly Bayliss, the best way to capture the excitement and emotion of SMU football is through a painting – a portrait of reigning quarterback Kevin Jennings in a crown, student Mustang fans cheering on the team and a portrayal of a football helmet backed by the Dallas skyline, designating SMU as Dallas’ team.

An SMU advertising graduate student and photographer for the Mustang Athletics creative team, Aly finds the connection obvious.

Art captures the emotion and vulnerability of football. It can also capture the behind-the-scenes moments, like exhaustion after practice and the grit of a weight room work-out.

Aly Bayliss, photographer, Mustang Athletics

As a painting major at Abilene Christian University, her senior exhibition, “Intercepted” featured rugged paintings and gritty photographs of football players, is on exhibit now at her high school alma mater, Trinity Christian Academy in Addison.

As a freshman at Abilene Christian, she fell in love with sports when the Athletic Department recruited student photographers. She interned with the department all four years there, and her senior year, interned with the SMU football creative team, driving 200 miles to Dallas to work at a home game and helping at the Holiday Bowl in San Diego. She joined the SMU creative team as a graduate assistant last summer.

At a creative team brainstorm session before the football season started, Aly’s idea to add a painting to the home game football media promotion mix was greeted with enthusiasm. Now two weeks before home games, she sets a portable easel on her desk and usually works from a photo to create the painting. The paintings are auctioned after the game. Her painting previewing SMU’s ACC home opener against Boston College sold for $5,000.