Janice Lowry (March 30, 1946 – September 20, 2009) was an American visual artist who worked in

Arizona Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...

and

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

and was known primarily for her assemblages,

collages Collage (, from the french: coller, "to glue" or "to stick together";) is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an Assemblage (art), assemblage of different forms, thus creat ...

paintings Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...

, and the elaborately visual

journal A journal, from the Old French ''journal'' (meaning "daily"), may refer to: *Bullet journal, a method of personal organization *Diary, a record of what happened over the course of a day or other period *Daybook, also known as a general journal, a ...

s that she kept throughout her life.

Biography

Lowry's highly biographical artwork is rooted in her early family life. She was one of five children whose mother married 7 times. Family instability and difficulty figure prominently in her work. At the age of 11, she started keeping a diary and continued to do so until 2007, with the exception of one decade. In 1965, Lowry married Jan Gilbert, whom she had known in high school. They soon had two children, Brandon and Kevin. Lowry painted at home and also worked for interior decorators. It was during this time that Lowry set up her first studio and started to show her work. Her assemblage work often was created with found objects and instead of framing the finished piece, which she couldn't afford, she installed the pieces in wooden frame boxes. Over the years, her assemblage work transitioned from impressionistic to introspective, mirroring her admiration for Frida Kahlo in the 1970s to 1980s. In 1973, Lowry moved to California when her husband's company transferred him to Whittier. In 1975, Lowry and Gilbert divorced. After graduation with her Master's from the Art Center College of Design in 1980, she began to teach at the center. In 1983, Lowry married advertising art director Jon Gothold and took a break from teaching. Her journal styles began to evolve to include comic-style panels and lists of thoughts. By the mid-1990s, the journals developed into fully formed art objects, with heavily collaged and painted covers enclosing a mix of painting, essays, stamp art, and clippings. In 2007, on advice from Pat House, executive director of the Muckenthaler Cultural Center in Fullerton, Lowry began looking for a way to share and preserve her 126-volume collection of journals. In 2007, the journals were made part of the permanent collection of the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

Archives of American Art The Archives of American Art is the largest collection of primary resources documenting the history of the visual arts in the United States. More than 20 million items of original material are housed in the Archives' research centers in Washingt ...

. Lowry died on September 20, 2009, at her Santa Ana home, at the age of 63, from liver cancer.

Education and career

Education

* 1979 Bachelor's degree

Art Center College of Design Art Center College of Design (stylized as ArtCenter College of Design) is a private art college in Pasadena, California. History ArtCenter College of Design was founded in 1930 in downtown Los Angeles as the Art Center School. In 1935, Fred ...

in Pasadena, CA. * 1980 Master's degree

in Pasadena, CA.

Teaching

* Cypress College * Art Institute of Orange County

Selected exhibitions

Janice Lowry: Water Collection & Journals (2008)
Grand Central Gallery, Santa Ana, CA The OsCene (2006-7)
Laguna Beach Museum of Art, Laguna Beach, CA Funktional Art (2006)
Amorviejo Art Gallery, Santa Ana, CA A Few Of Our Favorite Things (2006-7)
Santa Ana College Arts Gallery at the Santora Building The Art of Remembering: Words and Images (2007)
The Muckenthaler Cultural Center, Fullerton, CA Janice Lowry: A One Person Show (2007)
Coastline Community College, Huntington Beach, CA

Art Journals, circa 1973-2007

Lowry switched from keeping smaller personal diaries to larger format (7 by 9 inch) journals around 1974. The journals contain both text and artworks. The artworks are in the form of sketches,

, and

, rendered in ink,

pencil A pencil () is a writing or drawing implement with a solid pigment core in a protective casing that reduces the risk of core breakage, and keeps it from marking the user's hand. Pencils create marks by physical abrasion, leaving a trail ...

watercolors Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to t ...

acrylic paint Acrylic paint is a fast-drying paint made of pigment suspended in acrylic polymer emulsion and plasticizers, silicone oils, defoamers, stabilizers, or metal soaps. Most acrylic paints are water-based, but become water-resistant when dry. De ...

crayon A crayon (or wax pastel) is a stick of pigmented wax used for writing or drawing. Wax crayons differ from pastels, in which the pigment is mixed with a dry binder such as gum arabic, and from oil pastels, where the binder is a mixture of wax a ...

, marker pens, and ink stamps. Inside the journals, she recorded phone numbers, studies, plans, and diagrams, tucking in loose papers, letters, photographs, and objects. She included topics in her journals such as travel, thoughts, lists, dreams, finances, critiques, correspondence, timelines, and relationship with her mother. The journals also include sketches of vacation spots, objects around the house, studies, people. She also let her children sketch in her journals. Lowry was named the Orange Count region's best visual artist of 2007 by the OC Weekly for her assemblage creations.

References

External links

Digitized Journals from the Janice Lowry papers
in the Archives of American Art {{DEFAULTSORT:Lowry, Janice 1946 births 2009 deaths American collage artists American women collage artists Artists from Phoenix, Arizona Painters from California ArtCenter College of Design alumni Deaths from liver cancer in California Painters from Arizona 20th-century American painters 20th-century American women artists 21st-century American women