Mrs. Ruth Sharon Fallon

Ruth Leavitt Fallon 80, died on Thursday, January 16, 2024. She is survived by her loving husband of 30 years Michael Fallon, her son, Daniel Leavitt, his wife Karen Leavitt, and a grandson, Benjamin Leavitt. Ruth Leavitt Fallon was born Ruth Sharon Hartman to Emil and Eva Hartman of St. Paul Minnesota, on March 8, 1944, the third of 4 children. She showed an early interest and capacity in art as a child, which only grew and developed as she matured and became more skilled, eventually receiving a BA in art from the University of Minnesota where she met and married Jay Leavitt, a mathematician. They soon moved to SUNY Buffalo where she attended graduate school, receiving an MFA. In 1968, Ruth began working on her art in the busy computer center at SUNY Buffalo late at night or in the early morning when it was not in use by others. This led her to many new tools and insights which she incorporated into her artistic process, and eventually to edit the pioneering book, Artist and Computer in 1976, where 35 artists from North America, Europe, and Japan discuss how they used the computer to enable, develop and inform their process of creating art. In 1970, a son, Daniel E. Leavitt, was born to Ruth, but her marriage to Jay eventually failed. For a while she taught art at the University of Rochester part time, but then she began to seek a full-time tenured position, taking a full- time, tenure track position in the art department at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, where in she met and married Michael Fallon, a poet who taught Creative Writing, there in 1995. They had a 30-year marriage, which was filled with happiness and artistic fulfillment as they both encouraged each other’s art. Shortly after her marriage, Ruth took a part-time position at the Maryland Institute College of Art where she taught for several years before retiring to pursue her art full-time. Eventually, Ruth’s Book, Artist and Computer, began to be recognized as a seminal and pioneering work, and her art began to acquire more recognition, both nationally and internationally. Her work was exhibited at the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels in 1981, at the Worchester Art Museum in Massachusetts in 1978, at the Le Musee’ d’art contemporain de Montreal in 1974, and it is currently held in public collections at the Minneapolis Institute of Art and the AKG Art Museum in Buffalo New York, where it is part of the Electric Ops show. Ruth was honored with a one-woman show at the RCM Gallery in Paris, France in 2022, followed by a group show of 50 women artists, entitled, “Radical Software: Women, Art and Computing” at the MUDAM Museum In Luxembourg. Tragically, she suffered heart failure immediately following the show, and for the next four months, she became in creasing ill, until she died at home in Baltimore on Thursday, January 16, 2025. We remember Ruth as a pioneering force who bridged artistic tradition and new technology with grace and curiosity. Her accomplishments remind us of the power of embracing innovation, and her warmth and kindness serve as an enduring example to all who knew her. Ruth’s work is currently on exhibit at the Electric Dreams show at Tate Modern Gallery in London and at the Kunsthalle Museum in Vienna. She is survived by her husband, Michael Fallon and her son, Daniel E. Leavitt, his wife Karen, and a grandson, Benjamin. There will be a viewing of Ruth Leavitt Fallon for family and friends at the Mitchell-Weidefeld family owned Funeral Home at 6500 York Road (at Overbrook) on Tuesday, January 21 from 2-4 and 7-9 pm. There will be no funeral service and the date of a memorial is TBA. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the American Red Cross, P.O. Box 37839, Boone, IA 50037

Mrs. Ruth Sharon Fallon

March 8, 1944 - January 16, 2025