James Balyeat was a painter, sculptor and educator associated with the formative years of the University of California, Davis, art department. He earned an M.A. in Art in 1962 from UC Davis, making him part of an early generation of graduate students in the department as its influential studio art program was taking shape. Balyeat subsequently taught at UC Davis and the Davis Community Art Center before joining the fine arts faculty at Washington State University in 1964. In 1966, Balyeat participated in the original Slant Step Show at the Berkeley Gallery in San Francisco. That same year, his painting Wild Woman Don’t Have No Blues II was exhibited through the Museum of Modern Art’s Art Lending Service in New York.