Open Studio heads to SCA to visit Mountainfilm for Students and Ruth Crowe exhibit.
Open studio students experience a wide variety of mediums each semester, and this spring we extended our learning with a trip to Saugatuck Center for the Arts, where we encountered the power of film through Mountainfilm for Students shorts highlighting world cultures, traditions, and stories of adventure. Then we dove into the visual and written stories of Ruth Crowe, whose collage and encaustic work in the Journal Project exhibit represents 40+ years of questioning, growing, and trying…as recorded in her extensive journal collection. Ruth introduced students to her mixed-media process, and students used transfer techniques and mixed media to create their own collaborative collages.
In partnership with Arbor Circle, one of West Michigan’s most comprehensive providers of mental health services, this workshop provided a variety of helpful written and visual tools to explore on our healing and wellness journeys. Ruth shared about her work and process for The Journal Project and inspired students to consider ways in which they can reflect on and grow from past events through journaling and art.
Ruth’s work and stories remind us that “it doesn’t end here…” (unless we go to war and die), the decisions we make and the doors we walk through are not final – so we can bring with us all that we carry and step through the door with confidence. Or as another piece puts it “Life lies in possibilities…they are just there waiting for us to get out of our own way.”
Thank you for sharing your knowledge and experiences with us @ruthellacrowe and thank you for hosting us @saugatuck_arts!
More about Ruth Crowe – mixed media artist on exhibit: Journal Project
Michigan-based mixed media artist Ruth Crowe debuts a uniquely personal and heartily relatable collection of layered stories inspired by 40 years of collecting her personal stories in The Journal Project. This collection reflects back on moments of bigotry, injustice, trauma, relationships, celebrations, and new experiences. Ruth’s stories, though deeply hers, are also all of ours.
