Jo Alice Lowrey Leeds

1926 - 2021

Leeds, Jo Alice Lowrey

July 28, 1926 - February 23, 2021

GREENSBORO – Dr. Jo Alice Leeds died peacefully on February 23, 2021 at the age of 94. Jo Leeds was born in 1926 to Gladys Tyler Lowrey and Joe Jarman Lowrey in Washington DC where she spent her childhood and graduated from Roosevelt High School. In the late 1940s, Jo attended college as an art student at Cooper Union in New York City along with soldiers returning on the GI Bill, a meaningful experience that remained with her for the rest of her life.

In 1950, she married Anthony Leeds and began a family while she continued her work as a magazine illustrator and commercial artist. In 1961, the family moved to Washington DC and in 1963, to Austin, Texas. In the late 1960s as a single mother, Jo performed the heroic work of raising three children while completing her education and establishing herself in the teaching profession. She earned her master's degree in Art History at the University of Texas, Austin and then moved with her children to Lawton, Oklahoma to take a teaching position at the community college. In 1974, she earned her doctoral degree in Art Education at the University of Oklahoma, Norman. That same year, she moved to Greensboro, North Carolina where she served as Professor of Art Education at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro from 1974 until her retirement in 1993.

After retirement, Jo spent the next years painting and teaching art classes in a lovely studio she had built behind her house. She continued her years-long study of Rudolph Steiner and Anthroposophy with her Greensboro study group. The last eleven years she lived at Friends Homes Guilford where she made many new friends, continued to paint as she was able, and enjoyed many activities. She particularly took pleasure in the bi-weekly poetry group where she developed impressive skill as a poet informed by her unique ability to recall poems and song lyrics she had learned over her lifetime.

Jo was always interested and engaged in the creative process and her creative life and her spiritual life were closely intertwined. She made beautiful images in a wide range of media, from the pen and ink drawings of her youth, through bold oils and pastels, to the more introspective watercolors of her later years. Her paintings reflected themes of natural beauty as well as spiritual themes. All her friends and family will remember the angels that adorned her holiday cards for many years.

Jo is survived by her three children, Madeleine, John (Emily Stockard), and Anne (Ken Ashley), her two grandsons, Emil Ashley and Atticus Leeds, and her niece and nephew, Marjorie Holman and Matthew Holman. She will be fondly remembered by many cousins, colleagues, students, and friends, in particular, her beloved friends of the Greensboro Anthroposophical Society who held a three-day Crossings vigil in her honor.

A family celebration of life will be held at a later date.

In lieu of flowers, the family welcomes gifts to any of the following: Friends Homes Guilford, 925 New Garden Road, Greensboro, NC 27410; Sophia Center for Life Studies/Crossings Care, Greensboro, NC (sophiacenterforlifestudies.org) or North Carolina Art Education Association (NCAEA) P.O. Box 26082, Winston Salem, NC 27114.

Online condolences and tributes may be offered at Forbis and Dick Guilford Chapel at www.forbisanddick.com