Ruthie Allen combines paint with musical passion

Fifteen minutes after Ruthie Allen was to start her Tuesday show at the Venue Fine Arts & Gifts, the singer/songwriter swept into the audience-filled room with guitar in hand.

On the gallery’s walls, 11 of her abstract paintings displayed a calculated craziness of bright colors and repeated shapes.

“Thank you all for coming, I didn’t think anybody would be here,” Allen said, setting up at the front of the room. “Tell you what, I’m waiting on my guitar player. He may be parking, but I’ll just have a little wine and start by myself.”

Ron King, accompanying on guitar, arrived and with Allen began to play. But the folk-like sound that came from her acoustic guitar sounded nothing like what her “rock”
painting suggested.

“I think that falls into the definition of being multifaceted,” Venue owner Gabriel Colman said.

Colman first heard Allen sing at a concert last year at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater when she played at a concert of artists who were popular in the Bloomington area in the late 60s and early 70s.

At a Venue party following the concert, Allen picked up a guitar and played again.
“When she played here, she was just having fun, picking around,” Colman said. “That really set her voice in my mind.”

But her paintings also caught Colman’s eye.

“They’ve got an expert-level finish,” he said. “They’re very balanced for being abstract art.”

Allen recently moved back to Bloomington after a two-and-a-half year stint in California and a very short stay in Cincinnati where she had lived earlier.

“I went back and almost got robbed,” she told the audience of the Ohio move.

But being back in Indiana has given her new songwriting ideas.

“I figured since I’m in southern Indiana, I had to write a little train song,”
she said.

Allen has released two CDs since the start of her music career and is soon to release a third.

“She’s got several CDs out, and they’re not self-published,” Colman said. “She has a reputation.”

Despite Allen’s worries that no one would come to the event, about 15 audience members attended the show.

“I knew people would come,” Colman said.

On a bench at the back of the room, Judy Lake sat with a friend while waiting for Allen to arrive. She heard about Allen’s performance from the Venue’s weekly email.

“We haven’t come out as much as we’d like,” Lake said. “We usually come once every other week.”

Since 2009, the Venue has held performances and other events every Tuesday from artist demonstrations to beer-making lessons, Colman said. When Colman discovered Allen also painted, he knew he wanted her to get involved.

“My father said, ‘You know who’s also an artist? Ruthie Allen,’” Colman said. “I’m thrilled to show her work.”

A couple of songs into the show, Allen looked out at the audience.

“Is everybody happy?” she said. “Are you happy, Ron? No?” Allen turned to her guitar accompanist.

“I couldn’t be happier,” King replied.