Artist Ruth Crowe to Mount “The Journal Project” Exhibition at Stonewall National Museum As Next Stop in National Tour
Artist Ruth Crowe pored over 72 journals she had kept since 1979 as the first step in developing a very personal, intimate exhibition that explores universal themes.
"Desiderium" is the ardent desire or longing for something lost or a feeling of loss. This piece centers on a photo of the artist as a young kid, who has since been searching her whole life for "answers, for happiness, for self-absolution."
"Keep Passing the Open WIndows": Per Crowe, "My journals saved my life by basically allowing me the freedom to open up honestly... I am so glad I kept passing those open windows and discovered the possibilities of life."
Opening Celebration planned for March 15 with Crowe leading hands-on Workshops March 16-17
Crowe will be at the official opening party planned for March 15 at the museum, then she will lead two journaling workshops on March 16-17 at which she will inspire attendees to create their own art using fusions of vintage photography with layers of other images, photos and sometimes words. As part of her process, Crowe explains, “I re-create a new story about the characters in the photos – my own story, from my own experiences. My art, like myself, are works in progress.”
“The Journal Project” was conceived in Jan. 2022, when Crowe decided it was finally time to go back, face her demons and fears, and read the searingly honest words she had penned to chronicle her life experiences over the previous 43 years – in their entirety.
“On occasion I would try to re-read these journals without success. It was just too hard to look back to see who I had been or what had happened along the way,” said Crowe. But as she started to read her journals in chronological order, “I wanted to face my past and tackle the albatross I carried with me… It was extremely difficult to come face to face with certain slices of my life, but I plowed through each one searching for answers and for my truth. Hindsight is so much easier after the fact -- how we judge ourselves, view our past and who we are through the lens of who we are now.”
Crowe then distilled the words and memories and doodles that populated her journals over four decades to create 30 deeply personal works tied to monumental events that shaped her life, with the hope they would resonate with people of all kinds.
“We are more alike than different. But all our experiences and how we react to them are uniquely our own,” said Crowe. “I was gay. Growing up when I did was challenging and made my story much different than the straight accepted norm of the day. With so much bigotry reasserting itself in the world right now, I hope we can all be aware of the issues that ‘others’ face every day. Whether that ‘other’ is a different color, sexuality, gender, and so on.”
“The Journal Project” has evoked enthusiastic and emotional responses across Crowe’s home state of Michigan (she was born and raised in Allendale and now lives in Douglas, Michigan). The exhibition first opened at the CultureVerse Gallery in Ann Arbor, where Crowe lived from 2008-19, as part of a three-artist show running from Dec. 2022 through Jan. 2023. It then moved across the state to the Saugatuck Center for the Arts for a three-month run. Its most recent stop was at Chicago’s Center on Halsted, the Midwest’s most comprehensive community center dedicated to LGBTQIA+ people, from Aug. – Sept., 2023.
While Crowe earned a degree in Art Education, she initially abandoned any artistic aspirations for more than 30 years to pursue a life in the U.S. Army, followed by the L.A. police force and later as a collegiate softball coach. Having taught herself Photoshop, she then ran her own graphic design business for 11 years before devoting her energy to creating art full-time.
The March 15 opening party starts at 6 p.m. in the Heller Gallery at the Stonewall National Museum, 1300 E. Sunrise Blvd. in Ft. Lauderdale. All are welcome to immerse themselves in past few decades of Crowe’s life experiences, both via her visual works and through excerpts from her journals that she personally recorded. All are accompanied by a song by past or current recording artists, along with a quote from the likes of Steve Jobs, Oscar Wilde, Oprah Winfrey and Margaret Atwood that complement each piece.
For more information on Crowe, visit www.ruthcroweartist.com.
Walter Petersen
WRP Communications
+1 312-804-3475
wally@wrpcommunications.com
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