The Curiosities of Janice Lowry

A prolific teacher, collage artist, painter, sculptor, and documentarian, Janice Lowry (1957-2009) succeeded at both goals. Her vibrant body of work continues to resonate with friends, family, students, and admirers all over the world. Former student and friend Mark Ryden contributes a heartfelt preface.

Lowry's diary in 126 volumes, which she kept from age eleven, is in the Smithsonian Institution's Archives of American Art. Her assemblages, drawing from Joseph Cornell's shadow boxes, are surreal 3-D worlds made of a variety of materials -- from worn paint, imperfect wood, and plastic doll parts to string, table legs, playing cards and deer antlers. Mixed-media paintings reinterpret 19th century cabinet cards, and Dada-esque collages superimpose old and new elements, from 1950s domestic advertisements to celestial imagery.

The Curiosities of Janice Lowry is both an epitaph and an insightful look into the influences that shaped this intensely creative individual and is published as a celebration of Lowry's career retrospective at the Grand Central Art Center in Santa Ana, California.