Although Ruth Grover always knew she had a love of art, realizing what level this passion would plateau upon has been a lifelong search.
Grover is now the director and curator of the George Ayers Cress Gallery of Art at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and the John and Diane Marek visiting artists series. Growing up in a small Ohio community of 17,000 (an entire population that would fit inside the McKenzie Arena), the general community conception of art and artists was not very good, and Grover was discouraged from pursuing a career in the arts.
Grover instead attended Ohio University as an English major, later switching to psychology. Grover says that all her friends were artists and she took many art history classes, always thinking that she’d rather be in the art world.
For graduate school at the University of Cincinnati, Grover majored in school psychology and got a Masters degree in education, thereafter moving to Chattanooga. At this point, art was calling more now than ever, so Grover bought art supplies, set up a studio in her apartment, took tips from her artist friends and produced a small body of work.
She stayed in Chattanooga and finished a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in painting, continuing as a studio painter for 10-years while maintaining a part-time job with the university as the visual resources curator and teaching art history. With her experience mounting exhibitions in the Cress Gallery during the summer and her own work around town, Grover was offered the director/curator position at the Gallery, which she gladly accepted and has embraced.
“I’m very happy I took it because now I realize it was what I was meant to do. It’s a role I feel very passionate about and that fits my skills,” Grover says.
In the director aspect of her job, Grover oversees financial matters, directs staff and attends to administrative duties. Her curator role is the more creative element, as she determines the overall schedule of the gallery in presenting exhibitions that fit with the curriculum of the department of art, involving the campus, bringing the community onto campus and serving as an education resource in the visual arts and contemporary art scene.
Grover says that she tries to speak to all aspects of the department of arts curriculum which includes sculpture, painting, graphic design, photography and new media. The first exhibition for this season was contemporary figurative painting, the second was Chinese contemporary art that involved a lot of photography and video elements, and in choosing the current exhibition, Grover was looking for sculpture.
Grover became familiar with Ian Pedigo’s work in 2008, and followed his progress until inviting him to the Marek series to bring his work and himself to the university for the “Living Daylights” sculptural installation that will be on display through March 21. Pedigo’s work follows the idea of objects in the 21st century in using found, untraditional and un-heroic items like bolts of cloth, shelving, rocks and other items to create sculpture.
“Bringing this undiscovered material back to the studio to work with it and uncover that potential is what he does. It’s not the type of work you see every day, and it’s not the type of work most people are familiar with,” Grover says. “Because of its unique quality, it’s a little more difficult for people to understand and absorb. This challenges our visitors, and in this way, I feel we had a complete year.”
With the Merck visiting artists series that Grover organizes, she brings two to four artists to the university per academic year in association with their exhibitions.
“After doing this since 2006, it almost seems empty to me now to mount an exhibition in the gallery and not bring the artist in with it,” Grover says.
These artists hold a lecture, meet one-on-one with upperclassmen art majors, and show their art to bring a connection between artist and viewers.
“It ... demystifies who they are, and I think it gives our students a chance to actually conceive of themselves as being professional artists in meeting someone who is not so different from them,” Grover says.
Because Chattanooga has always been so unbelievably art-centered, Grover says the population may not be aware of themselves in this light that visiting artists are impressed by.
“With what is going on with Chattanooga right now with the public sculpture initiative, Hunter Museum and its impressive collection, with the Association for Visual Arts, and Create Here, I like to envision the Cress Gallery of Art as a part of all of this activity, an active contributor and a proud institution itself to be a part of the cultural scene in Chattanooga. In that aspect, Chattanooga is making quite a name for itself with all these elements,” Grover says.
Visit the Cress Art Gallery inside the Roland Hayes Fine Arts Center on the UTC campus and online at http://oneweb.utc.edu/~artdept/cressgallery/.