Crown Thorn Publishing Brings Young Masters to the Art Community By VICTOR FORBES Prayer, n. — A reverent petition made to God
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young newlywed, seeking her way in the world, Ruth-Ann Thorn had a simple request for her heavenly Father. “I was really frustrated with thinking about what to do with my life,” she recalled. “So one night I prayed, ‘whatever it is you have for me God, I’m ready.’ ” “The next day, this gal that I worked with in a restaurant — her husband was a chef — said to me, ‘Ever think of working in a gallery?’ She was employed by Images International of Hawaii at the time and I had no experience at all in the art field, other than growing up in an artistic family in an artistic community in Portland, Oregon.” Her mother taught dance and she and her sister grew up in the arts, always gravitated to it and were always involved in it at some level. “I went to the Images International Gallery and Andrew Fisher hired me on the spot. That is the truth of the story. It was destiny. “Shortly after that, my husband, who was a Marine stationed in Hawaii got suckered into it. He was a soldier during the week and on weekends would help us with shows and go to art fairs. At the time, Images was huge, with Otsuka, Caroline Young and other artists, they would take up to 23 booths at Artexpo in those golden, prosperous days. Today one of the most exciting booths at Artexpo is run by Ruth-Ann and James, nearly 20 years from her start in the industry. Her representation of Henry Asencio and Michael Flohr has generated interest from galleries and collectors worldwide and her focus on publishing just these two young men has resulted in her Crown Thorn Publishing company blossoming into one of the more successful ventures in a not so easy industry. In 1993, James was stationed back on mainland and with the art market changing radically once again (Images was selling) “My husband encouraged me to open a gallery. I called it the “gallery-non-gallery” and it was a really small space in Carlsbad CA. At the time, we worked out of our house. We’d set up shows in hotels, travel to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Colorado — load up a big U-hual truck, fly the artists in, bring our walls and that’s how we started.” 60 • Fine Art Magazine
James Thorn, Michael Flohr, Ruth-Ann Thorn, before Michael’s mural
The Thorns carried a variety of work and in 1997 opened a gallery in La Jolla. “We took all the money we had made and squirreled away and rolled the dice in La Jolla, that was our first real big adventure. For five years we had a pretty good time with it. I remember the first six months, just sitting at the desk there, my eyes welling up with tears, thinking, ‘Are we ever going to make a go with this?’ It wasn’t the best location but what we could afford. This is the foundation: we really have struggled, gone through it all. We learned a lot there that we needed to know, including, ‘There’s nothing more expensive than cheap rent.’ ”
After a while we went back to our roots doing outside marketing, interior design shows, art shows, horticultural shows—bringing people from San Diego into the gallery. We built a nice little client base.” In 2001 Ruth-Ann had another serious prayer session. The result was she and James opened up in a very high end shopping center in San Diego. Another big step in faith, the mall would only offer three months because at the time they were just a “mom and pop” store. It was a very scary proposition in that a beautiful build-out costing $100,000 was required to show the mall management how serious they were, yet they were only guaranteed a three