I am very pleased to announce that I have won a Creation Grant from the Vermont Arts Council to fund the creation of a new sculpture!

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The piece is titled Homemaker, and will be a much larger than life spider rendered in vintage furniture. I have sought funding and support for this piece for years, and now I have $5000 to pay for materials, fabrication, and my own time to make it real. Homemaker will continue the work with vintage furniture that I started in college with Uneasy Chair, a scorpion made from an armchair, and continued with Slipcover, which renders a female form with all the upholstered details of the chair in which she sits. Through these pieces, I get to question the tensions and dualities of the domestic space, in which safety and comfort are taken for granted, frequently at the cost of intense social, racial, and gendered inequality.

As some of you may remember, the sculpture show The Weight was funded by a Creation Grant in 2022. That support and the ensuing show radically changed my life as an artist, creating opportunities to exhibit and take on bold commissions that would not have been possible otherwise.

While The Weight invited viewers to observe domestic objects at a human scale, using humor to challenge viewers’ expectations, my goal with Homemaker is to overwhelm. To those turning a corner in a gallery, I hope to impose a spider so enormous, and so realistic in it’s proportions and stance, that a patron might flinch in fear and surprise. Upon further investigation, heart rate slowing, they might notice the care with which the spider is formed, of dark wood, tender cabbage-rose chintz, and lovingly applied cording. What is this terror, built of the intimacy of a grandmother’s prize sofa? What monster of resentment and repression might crawl from the dark corners of the home your mother grew up in, or which she made for you?

But Ruth, you might be thinking, aren’t you having a human baby in…*checks calendar*…four to six weeks? Well, yes. And I’ve heard it’s like, hard? But also, what better year to make a huge frightening metaphor about formidable maternal resilience? There will be plenty to figure out, and my timeline may not be as tidy as I presented in my application (which I wrote on the single nausea-free day of my first trimester). Thankfully, I have many outlets of support, including those with open arms to hold my kid and those whose fierce dedication to my art continues to amaze me.

I have been wanting to make this piece for years, and having the funding and accountability of this grant soothes one of my great fears of impending motherhood. Will I ever make art again?

As it turns out, Yes!

Speaking of commissions, I finally made a video of my process creating September 1st, the huge relief sculpture I completed last October in a private home. I showed the video at the Governor’s Institute to demonstrate this year’s theme of ‘artistic rigor.’ My goal for the piece was to capture that moment when summer exhales, letting autumn start to mix yellow and maroon into the lush, blousy greens of August.

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If you need me, I’ll be scouring Facebook Marketplace for gently used baby gear, or lying down.

Cheers,

Ruth

I just got home from my third year teaching at the Governor’s Institute on the Arts (GIA). GIA is a two week immersive and intensive art program for Vermont high school students. Students get to live on a college campus together, taking art classes from professional artist faculty (like me!) as well as leading their own workshops, and seeing live artists presentations and performances. I taught a morning and an evening class called Soft Power! Fabric Art and Sculpture, with a total of 18 students ranging from 14 to 17 years old. Most of them had never sewn before, but damn, can they sew now!

We started by making class quilts with pre-cut squares, to get them using the sewing machine right away and practicing Right-Sides-Together thinking. They built up 4-square blocks and then composed the quilt top as a team, learning to puzzle all the pieces together into a whole.

Next, they worked in pairs to create a unique piece for installation in the shared gallery space. Options included an interactive piece for the floor, like a pond with lily pads, or a hanging sculpture, like a six foot dragon plushie with quilted fire! And that was all in the first week.

To start off the second week, I invited my colleague and friend Lexy Ho-Tai to video call into class to give an artist’s talk and answer questions. Lexy’s work ranges from sculpture to costume to installation to stop-motion animation, truly pushing the boundaries of what soft sculpture can do. The students asked questions and were inspired by her ethos of eliciting emotion through visible hand work.

For their final projects, my students’ only limitations were time and materials, and that they had to use the sewing machine for everything but embroidery and final touches. Almost everyone employed more than one of the techniques we learned in class, including patchwork quilting, pillow turnout, machine appliqué, reverse appliqué, and embroidery.

I’m so proud of all that they learned and accomplished, pushing through the inherent frustrations of sewing (seam-ripping, inside-out-thinking, running out of bobbin thread, tricky fabrics, persnickety sewing machines) to realize their visions. I’m also very proud of myself! I dramatically changed my teaching plan this year, and it paid off in less burnout on my end and more artwork on theirs.

Throughout the Institute, it is such a treat to see so many students blossom and create with such eagerness and abandon in all the classes and activities on offer. It makes me so proud and grateful to be a part of GIA. If you have or know any Vermont high school students, I strongly recommend that they apply!

Now that I’m home again, I’m spending the rest of the summer preparing for a big new phase of life. Ian and I are expecting a baby in mid-October!

(Yes, I feel good, and no, we don’t know the sex.)

If you need me, I might be getting the house ready, but more likely swimming.

Cheers,

Ruth

Come see new and never-before-seen quilt works at Bobbin + Skein in Brattleboro, opening June 5th for First Friday!

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Bobbin + Skein is a lovely sewing, spinning, weaving, knitting, and all things fiber art shop at 51 Main Street. They have beautiful inventory and a fully equipped sewing studio where you can take classes or become a member to use the cool tools (like a pattern projector).

I’ll be hanging pieces from my Comforters series throughout the space. The latest piece is Beware Joyless Urgency 2.0, which I created in April during the April Arts Marathon, a fundraiser for the Community Asylum Seeker’s Project. I had a total of 44 sponsors and we raised $3,138.94!

You’ll also see the completed Stripey Quilt (working title), which I finally finished hand quilting this past rainy Sunday. I don’t know if I will hand quilt anything ever again…but it looks beautiful. This piece was inspired by a quilt I saw at the American Folk Art Museum back in November. I love the rhythm and transitions of the stripe blocking, and had a lot of fun making long, jazzy compositions with my most beloved scraps.

For the quilting, I chose wavy lines that meander the full length of the piece, crossing over the stripes and kissing all the different colors. I hope you will visit Bobbin + Skein to see this piece in all its completed glory. I’m feeling proud.

My next major art endeavor is teaching Fiber Art at the Governor’s Institute for the Arts (GIA) for the third year in a row. To impart my commitment to second-hand materials on my students (and make the most of my class budget), I’ve been calling dibs backstage at Experienced Goods, the thrift store where I work, as well as community-sourcing extra stuffing and scraps from my neighbors. Of course I also went down to Swanson’s Fabrics in Turner’s Falls, MA, to buy a bright and varied assortment of fabric yardage. In just two weeks, my students go from almost no sewing experience to using a sewing machine, hand embroidering, and creating things like Drag Penguins and quilts that make traditional patchwork their own.

Throughout high school and college I would spend summer break making quilts in various sweltering conditions, the box fan and the iron battling it out in my childhood bedroom or sublet apartment. Now that I’m an adult, my tolerance has gone down, but my ability to buy myself an AC has been fully realized. I hope you have ways to cool down as the season heats up.

If you need me, I’ll be binding the edges of a few more quilts before the show.

Cheers,

Ruth

Today is the first day of my April Art Marathon!

If you make a donation to the Community Asylum Seeker’s Project, you’ll get regular art studio updates from me for the month of April.

How does one prepare for an Art Marathon?

To start, I cleaned my studio. Put stuff away, vacuumed, opened the window to the spring air. It feels nice in there!

Next step, face the music. I have told everyone that I’m finally going to finish the pieces I started last winter while featured in the Latchis Gallery. They have all been crumpled up and stuffed into a tall laundry basket in the corner for 13 months, and the creative doubt demons just live for the stink of neglect. They especially love that I had convinced myself there were only three unfinished projects in there, but alas, there are four.

Each of these piles of fabric is a potential member of my Comforters series; bright colorful quilts with loud chunky-lettered text which you can read about here, here, and here. I started these unfinished piles while working onsite in the gallery. It was so rewarding to meet people who came in off the street to see more of what hollered out at them from the windows.

The downside to that space, however, was that the dirty, salty stone floor meant I couldn’t lay out the lettering and patchwork parts to create a final quilt composition.

One of the really exciting things that happened during that time was a major sale of a fan favorite. Beware Joyless Urgency has resonated with many people since I made it, and brought many people into the gallery during my stay. Although I don’t remake anything the same way twice, the obvious joy and relief that this piece has brought to people moved me to start another version. Of all my unfinished business, Beware 2.0 most wants completing.

If you would like to see this piece (and hopefully more) be fully realized, please sign up and sponsor my April Art Marathon! All proceeds go to legal and life services for asylum seekers in Brattleboro, Vermont. The Community Asylum Seekers Project (CASP) is experiencing a predictable surge in client need under the current administration’s intense anti-immigration policies and vicious deployment of ICE.

We need creativity, community, and currency to take care of each other.

You can support my art marathon by becoming a donor and by sharing this fundraiser with people who care.

Sign Up Here

The final phase of Art Marathon prep is…snacks. I’m off to the grocery store for yogurt, fruit gummies, and things to put on toast. Remembering to eat really helps keep the demons at bay!

If you need me, I’ll be in the studio.

Ruth

Support my April Art Marathon to benefit the Community Asylum Seeker’s Project!

(what? keep reading!)

Sponsor Me!

It’s March, of all things. I’ve mostly been costuming a kid’s theater program at the New England Youth Theater and playing solitaire on my phone. Tragically, leaving Instagram has not cured my procrastination or made my hair shinier. The intense hyper-individualization of scrolling has been replaced by an eerie quiet. I am reacquainting myself with the kitchen radio, texting videos of my cat directly to friends, and wondering what jokes I’ve been missing out on.

The quiet is better than the constant churning stress of attention-seeking, but the news still absolutely sucks. As an artist/sentient being, it can be very hard to know What To Do, which is why I am so grateful to announce that I will be participating in the Community Asylum Seeker’s Project (CASP) annual Art Marathon Fundraiser for the second year in a row.

Support my April Art Marathon to benefit the Community Asylum Seeker’s Project!

Sponsor Me!

CASP supports asylum seekers in Southern Vermont who have fled violence and terror in their home countries. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that under the current administration, the fates of these most vulnerable community members are more uncertain than ever. Our goal is to raise $50,000 to provide basic needs, job training, and legal services for those trying to rebuild their lives.

At a recent info session, I learned that CASP has never received federal funding, so they also haven’t lost any. However, the presence of ICE and increasingly anti-immigrant and anti-asylum policies from the Trump Administration has meaningfully increased the demand for their services.

My end of the deal is the commitment to work in my studio and share my progress (or authentic lack of progress) directly with sponsors three days a week for the entire month of April. In the corner of my studio there is a laundry basket filled with unfinished art quilts, destined to become part of my Comforters series. I am itching to complete them.

Last year, I had 23 sponsors who raised a total of $1684. This year, my goal is to have 50 unique sponsors and raise $3000.

In addition to exclusive studio updates, every sponsor will receive a small art gift from me. Those who donate $45 or more will receive a limited edition T-shirt or print, designed by me and printed at the Wonky Press in downtown Brattleboro.

Won’t you join me? Together we can build community, make art, and not feel so helplessly alone.

Join my Art Marathon!

During last year’s marathon I created All This, a Comforter I consider to be the keystone to the series. The ones I hope to complete this year vary in humor, desperation, and technique. I look forward to sharing them with you.

In other news, a student of mine won a Silver Key in the Vermont Scholastic Awards! She submitted a piece she made this summer in my Fiber Arts class at the Governor’s Institute for the Arts. I got to go to the award ceremony and brag about her, it was great¨̮

If you need me, I’ll be hand-quilting and hoping for crocuses.

Cheers,

Ruth

If you’re reading this, congratulations! You know how to find me.

With the first chimes of 2026, I quit Instagram.*

Before video content became The Thing, instagram was quite fun, and it is nice to look back on 14 (!) years of tender observational photos of my travels, friends, and sketches. But it ultimately became about Being A Big Deal and Content Creation and Conversion Factors and How To Win The Algorithm and Make Reels Make Reels Make Reels!!!!!!!

In 2023, one of my IG reels went micro-viral. It was about making SlipCover, and I started getting 1000s of views and hundreds of likes per day. I rode the wave, replying to comments and continuing to post about preparing to send SlipCover to California to be shown at the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles. When the shipping fell through at the last minute, I was able to crowd-fund, and the generosity of those paying attention made it possible to be in that show. This is a happy story of the power of social networking platforms!

What I never shared was that during that period of virality, I awoke every morning filled with dread. Would this be the day the hate comments started? How many views does a feminist need before the trolls start telling her to drop dead, and worse?Ultimately, I hovered right on the edge of notoriety, and when I stopped posting as regularly, the air eventually went out of the whole thing. Since then, as I have fed or neglected my instagram in turn, there has always been a prickle of fear. Will my next online ‘success’ bring the punishment due any woman who dares to exist online? I have watched many creators I admire face and handle this inevitable flood in different ways. That labor doesn’t interest me. ‘Sticking it to ‘em’ isn’t really possible on a platform that profits so much from toxic pile-ons.

As my arbitrary ‘Leave Instagram’ date approached with the end of 2025, I became increasingly sweaty and desperate for all the “good” things I am leaving behind. The cool artists I follow! Drain unclogging videos! Dark comedic skits about the very experience of being online! Horrific footage of genocide that major news outlets won’t cover! Little cookie of validation when someone likes my work!

The see-saw of longing to stay but actually to go is perfectly illustrated in this comic by Lexy Ho-Tai, a colleague and friend I met in residency at the Vermont Studio Center. She poured her significant skills into building an amazing website world of her work and process, which I visit often for inspiration. I want to be just like her when I grow up, so I’ve been doing the same, and will spend the winter building up a web-world of my own. Thank you to all the creatives who quit IG before me and wrote moving, informative essays about the experience.

Instead of working my hardest to make content that will vanish down the void, I want to display my work and ideas with the same care I bring to my art making. Instead of trying to hook people in the first two seconds within a 20-hour content cycle, I am setting the table and seeing who makes the effort to arrive for my tastiest morsels.

So. You already know where to find me. This newsletter will continue to arrive in your inbox and will always contain a link to my evolving website (as of now unchanged).

If you’re thinking “But Ruth! Substack is a social media platform run by scummy tech-N*zis too!” You are right! What I tell myself is that I find the platform supremely boring and I am not trying to become famous on Substack. If you have a better idea, please tell me.

Thank you very much for your attention. I do not take it for granted.

If you need me, I won’t be leaning against the wall in my kitchen, scrolling.

Ruth

*Someday, when I’m feeling Really grown up, I might delete the whole account, but for now I have left it as a portal to find this newsletter and my website. Someone else has my password, and I am (oh no, she’s gonna say it!) free.

When we last corresponded, I wasn’t sure how I was going to deliver the biggest commission of my life. Now, it is done! I finished it on October 15th and named it September 1st. The title is in honor of that moment when summer exhales as fall inhales, when the amaranth is a deep burgundy against the myriad greens and just a few leaves are showing the first twinkle of yellow.

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It took over two years to arrive at the right design for this piece. It took eight weeks of sewing fabric strips together, and four 10-12 hours days to install. A huge thank you to Alex Hahl at the Generator Makerspace for creating the curved frame out of steel rod, with custom cut French cleats that allow the piece to hold completely flush to the wall. This was my first time handing off a huge technical part of an artwork to another person, and Alex’s expertise and kindness were amazing.

Once the frame was designed, I had to make the composition to the right dimensions. Weeks of sewing strips of fabric together had resulted in too much material to work with. All of it was beautiful and a lot of work, which made editing a challenge. To invite the variation that makes the repetition sing, I had to unpick certain pieces, add new strips, cut pieces short here and add long ones there, all to create multi-directional visual interest.

I built up the composition in vertical strips, creating thicker and thicker columns as I found relationships to emphasize and finalize. By the end, the seams were taking 10 minutes each to put through the machine as I carefully patched up the hundreds of pieces I had cut, sewed, cut, sewed, cut, and sewed for weeks.

Another big thank you goes to my friend and fellow fiber artist Sophie Cooper-Ellis for her insight and encouragement during this process. She helped me work out how to approach the composition and brought me coffee when I was in the home stretch of sewing.

Installation took place in beautiful mid-October. After picking up the frame from the Generator Space, the first step was to attach hardware cloth with mini cable ties. This turned the frame into a ‘canvas’ of sorts, to which I could sew the fabric. I also spent some hours with a ladder and a level, installing the French cleats to the wall. The result of day one was a hideous brutalist sculpture you might see in a tech startup conference room.

Finally, it was time to attach fabric to frame. In the first ten minutes I was struck between the eyes by how I could have designed this piece to be installed in a couple of hours. Alas. Instead, I started what would become about 30 hours of hand sewing. This included lying underneath the sculpture, mechanic-style, to sew the middle part.

Once finished, it took three of us to lift the piece and make sure all of the mounting points were fully seated. What a feeling, when it was done! There is a crazy moment, when I finish a major piece, when all of the false confidence (and gummy worms and diet coke) I’ve been running on crashes into the reality of completion.

My goal was to create a unique, contemporary piece of abstract fiber art that stood up, evoking the moment when high summer sees the first inkling of fall. By George, I did it!

This piece was huge and humbling. I am grateful to those who supported me with kind words, expertise, genuine interest, and soup. I am grateful to my client who gave me so much time and space to develop this gigantic thing. I am thrilled to report that she loves it.

An extra special treat of this install was getting to visit an even bigger work made by my dear art wife Lydia Kern for the city of Burlington. If you are in Burlington, please go to City Hall Park to revel in the grandness and intimacy of Anthology.

This is the final weekend (December 6th and 7th) to see my work at the 4th Corner Foundation in Windham, VT! If you have been feeling any amount of despair about politics or current affairs lately, go laugh, cry, and wonder aloud at the ways fiber artists can illustrate all the madness.

If you need me, I’ll be seriously considering leaving instagram forever, and/or quilting.

Cheers,

Ruth

Did you know that there’s an outsider architecture compound called the 4th Corner Foundation tucked away in the rolling hills of Windham, VT?

Founded in 1995, the campus was designed by artist and architect Bob Shannon. The art gallery is dubbed the ‘Windham Guggenheim’ because of it’s long winding ramp, made of a complicated wooden grid that allows a viewer see works from different angles and vantage points. My work is at the top of the ramp!

Come see my work in the group show Solidarity: Fabric, Needle, and Thread. The opening is Saturday, September 20th, from 5-9pm.

Mark your calendar!

The thing that makes me feel most like a Real Artist™ is when someone I don’t know sees my work and wants to put it in their show. Especially in a group show about the interconnected politics of fiber art alongside the work of 18(!) diverse, excellent artists. Thank you to Cindy Smith and Jeanette Staley of the Two Chairs curating team, and to Matt Brader of the 4th Corner Foundation for the invitation.

Thanks to a destination wedding, I won’t be at the opening reception. I will be planning a trip in November, and YOU are invited to join me! Stay tuned for details.

If you need me, I’ll be in the studio, creating the biggest commission of my life! More on that coming up.

Cheers,

Ruth

For the last two months I have been actively working on the most major commission of my life. It is a fiber sculpture/installation for a private residence, and after being in talks and sketching for over two years, we now have a vision and a deadline.

My goal is to create a striking but ambient abstract fabric work that evokes the experience of standing in the forest while light streams down through the leaves but has the posture and presence of a totally non-objective contemporary painting.

Do I know how to do this?

HAHAHAHAAHHAAHAHAHAhahahah! NO I DO NOT!!

Despite not really knowing, the work has involved cutting strips of fabric, sewing them together, ironing them, sewing those together, ironing them, sewing those together, and eventually cutting more strips to do it all again. As a result, I have a lot of new fabric in my client’s favorite color palette to work with as the rest of the details like ‘HOW?’ and ‘WHAT?’ get figured out.

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Luckily, I discovered that there is a BBC competition show called The Great British Sewing Bee in which home-sewists compete to complete sewing challenges in a former wool factory in Yorkshire. Hopefully 12 seasons will be enough to see me through.

Meanwhile, my work will be in a group show at the 4th Corner Foundation opening September 20th, 2025.

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This show features many fantastic artists and will include two of my sculptures from The Weight, our old fan fave SlipCover and my latest sculpture piece, Slab, which debuted at The Putney School in January.

In other summer news, I got completely trounced in a knitting competition at the Champlain Valley Fair. The winner knit 12 rows in ten minutes, while I came in DFL* with only three rows. It was very fun and I am proud that I remembered how to knit after swearing I’d never bother again about 15 years ago.

*Dead F_____g Last, a term borrowed from ultra-marathoning.

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If you need me, I sure won’t be knitting!

Cheers,

Ruth

I have worked in my studio ten out of the last twelve days of May.

17 people have sponsored my art marathon so far, with a combined $873.14 donated to the Community Asylum Seekers Project (CASP).

Overall, CASP has already hit $25,000 of its $50,000 goal!

By making a donation, you will receive daily-ish updates from me by email and an art gift by snail mail 🐌.

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One of the results of a regular studio practice is, you guessed it, art getting made.

My latest completed quilt began with unrolling the solid blue fabric to discover the mountainous edge, cut by a previous maker. I am often extolling the virtues of using second-hand fabric, and this is my most direct example to date.

The blue, grey, and white printed ‘sky’ is an exact match to the fabric my mom and I bought when I was eleven or twelve, to make my first dress pattern together. She taught me how to match the notches in a pattern, how to attach interfacing, and how to hem a skirt by hand. That project expanded my universe irrevocably.

In college, my now-husband Ian studied Russian language with a literature focus. He told me about Dostoevsky’s novel Notes from Underground, which is considered the key that unlocks his longer, more famous novels. I haven’t read any of these books (sorry Ian!) but that concept leapt to the front of my mind recently as I realized I was creating the keystone quilt for my Comforters series.

All This is about the painful awe of awareness. The overwhelming expanse of space and self, the relentless possibilities, the dubious gratitude of total insignificance. Each of my Comforters is about something huge that I experience or grapple with, and I draw comfort from both externalizing these difficult topics and wedging the door open to invite others to join the conversation. Each piece is an attempt to express this feeling, to reconcile the purpose and purposelessness of consciousness. It is by and for my inner child, who has always wondered How Things Really Are. It is my quilt version of that quote from The Great Gatsby, “I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.”

What is it that inspires this feeling in you?

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Another word for this feeling, for a lot of people, is ‘God.’

Guess what my next piece is about!?

This one is quite technically challenging, as I push my appliqué lettering technique to new levels. We are up to six layers of fabric and batting, and I have only cut through the wrong layer and cursed loudly a couple of times so far.

You can see many more photos of the process (and my cat) if you join my May Art Marathon by donating to CASP! Please share this newsletter or my Marathon page with someone you think would like my art.

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Thank you for supporting my work.

If you need me, I’ll be renovating my chicken coop 🐔!

Cheers,

Ruth

After a sculpture show at a school and a quilt show at a movie theater, I am ready to get back in the studio and make new work.

To recommit to both my community and my studio practice, I have signed up for the Community Asylum Seekers Project (CASP) May Art Marathon. As you know, my work is about domesticity, and the power of the home to shape our identities. The loss of home is an absence I have not experienced, but I refuse to ignore.

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CASP supports asylum seekers in Southern Vermont who have fled violence and terror in their home countries. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that under the current administration, the fates of these most vulnerable are more uncertain than ever. Our goal is to raise $50,000 to provide basic needs, job training, and other services for those trying to rebuild their lives.

For the month of May, I am committing to working in my studio five days a week. I’ll share the daily process and progress on my Instagram, and send weekly recaps and reflections via this newsletter.

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While I was showing at the Latchis Gallery, I designed a batch of new Comforters. This month I will be turning those ideas into finished pieces, and sharing both the physical art progress as well as the personal and political motivations behind the slogans and materials that I choose.

Please consider donating to CASP through my artist page on their website. If you make a donation, email me with your mailing address so I can send you an art gift as a thank you!

Donate Now

Whether or not you donate, please share this project with others!

If you need me, I’ll be making art…or eating ice cream under the blooming spring trees.

As always, thank you for supporting my work.

Ruth

I will be taking down The Weight this Sunday.

This is your final reminder to go see it with the one Saturday we have left!

If you have been able to go, thank you so much. I’m very proud of this work, and I don’t know when I will be able to show it again.

Girl’s Dress, Fine Art, and Slab will be reduced to their origins as fabric, dummies, and lumps for storage. Many of the Cushions will be returned to their rightful owners, who generously lent them to me for this show. And SlipCover, that diva, will be moved to the window of the Latchis Gallery, in time for yet another art opening.

That’s right, ANOTHER art opening! My in-progress quilt series, Comforters, is on display as I work on new stuff right there in the gallery.

Join me Friday, March 7th, 5-7pm at the Latchis Gallery in downtown Brattleboro, where I am the Featured Artist until the end of March.

There will be snacks, drinks, and new works, and lots of different sizes of art for sale.

Put it in my Calendar!

This gallery shares a wall with the Latchis movie theater. So far, while making new work, I have listened to A Complete Unknown eight times, Truth Hurts three times, and Dogman and Paddington in Peru once each.

I don’t have super regular hours (because being an artist = many part time jobs) but if you are coming through Brattleboro please let me know and I will try to meet you there.

As always, thank you for supporting my work. I hope you are staying safe on the icy sidewalks, in uncertain times.

Ruth

And wow, thank you SO much for the support of my show opening at The Putney School.

I received so much support from the faculty, staff, and students at The Putney School. The students gave my artist presentation a standing ovation, of all things. It was a treat to talk to individual students about my work, yes, but also about denim jackets, making art about social issues, and how to get over creative blockages (remember that you don’t matter and eat a snack).

My only remaining wish is that you go see the show if you haven’t. The gallery is open all day, every day, and the show is up until March 1st. February is a short month, people. Take your Valentine to interrogate the way the feminine is culturally linked to objects of service!! Romantic!!

As if that isn’t enough, I am the new Featured Artist at the Latchis Gallery in downtown Brattleboro for the next two months.

This past weekend I schlepped a whole bunch of art, materials, and tools to the gallery and set up a little studio-away-from-home for February and March. Rather than scuffling secretly about in my pajamas, I will be making new work right there on Main Street. You can come right in, ask me what I’m doing, and buy my art if you feel so moved. Will I be in my pajamas? Come find out.

After I completed The Weight in 2022, I was desperate for color and improvisation. I’m so proud of that show, but the muted palette and rigorous conceptual and technical construction took a lot out of me. Desperate for bright fabrics and the simplicity of just hangin’ stuff on the wall, I started work on Comforters, a series of exuberant quilts with text. They are an extension of CHEAP TRENDY ART, my writing practice, and the need to self-soothe with tedious fiber tasks in the face of so much uncertainty. This is the work I’ll be doing at the Latchis, as I continue to build the collection and look for a place to open the show. I’ve received some really lovely rejections from various galleries already, and my hope is that with a few more major and minor pieces, I’ll have an undeniably strong solo show to shop around.

Although I’m loathe to deal with all the bureaucracy or give taxes to our current government, I will have a little bit of a shop going at the gallery as well. If you’d like some CHEAP TRENDY ART, a SlipCover sticker, or an original work, let me know so I can be there when you are.

Cheers and congratulations to Ian for being sworn into the Vermont House of Representatives! We of Windham-9 are so proud and comforted to be represented by this warm, wonderful person.

If you need me, I’ll be making art at a movie theater.

Stay warm,

Ruth

Your new year’s resolution is to see more art in person?

Boy, do I have great news for you…

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Installation is well underway.

Sunday morning I loaded up a truck and a car with three dummies, 12 breast pillows, 15-or-so yards of fabric, one armchair, one giant gold frame, a shocking number of lumps, and a vast assortment of attachment devices. Being a fabric installation, I also brought an iron, ironing board, fabric steamer, lint roller, three types of pins, two types of thread and a roll of duct tape.

The Cushions went up first, because they must be arranged according to personality, like guests at a high society gala. This took three people and an entire day last time (thanks Mom and Lydia), but I have refined and streamlined the process and today it took two of us less than two hours. It feels good to see them all together again.

Next came Fine Art, which you can learn more about in a couple videos I recently posted to instagram. Then a new piece I am too embarrassed/proud/tired to talk about, and finally SlipCover, who I have installed so many times it feels like floating. I am shocked by how much we got done today!

Great thanks are owed to Lynne Weinstein, the gallery director of the Putney School. She not only made this entire show possible, but also helped hang all the boob pillows and made sure everything was level, well-spaced, and coherent.

Yet to be installed is our covergirl, Girl’s Dress. This gallery has high walls but an even higher ceiling, which means a crew of professionals have to rig a line to hang the clothes hanger that holds the dress. Makes a girl feel like a Real Artist™.

Because our big important life events tend to coincide rather than take convenient turns, Ian is also having a major week! On Wednesday he will be sworn in to the Vermont State Legislature and begin the 2025 legislative session. I’m so excited to match my outfit to the House Chambers and probably cry.

I hope to see you this Friday between 4:30-6:30!

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If you need me, I’m so sorry but I am asleep.

Ruth

Please mark your calendar:

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The Weight is a soft sculpture show I created in 2022, funded by a Creation Grant from the Vermont Arts Council. Since then, the central piece, SlipCover, has made her way into a magazine, across the country and back, and up and down Vermont a few times. She was recently featured in an excellent group show called Wild Pink at Mad River Valley Arts in Waitsfield. I’m happy with SlipCover’s success, and eager to pull out the other sculptures that have been disassembled in storage for over two years.

In my studio, I made new work and struggled to write about it.

I have tried to share this piece with you for months, but every draft of this newsletter devolved into doom screeds, furiously listing the war crimes and horrors that pour from my phone screen every day. I have not known how to promote my art on the same internet as videos of razed neighborhoods, limp and lifeless children being pulled from rubble, refugee camps on fire, and on, and on.

Absolute Sucker was born from the intense grief and shame of watching the U.S. send billions of dollars of aid and weapons to enable Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. It is about the decades of propaganda that twisted antisemitism into carte blanche for Israel’s occupation and war crimes. It is about the social preference for civility over justice, and the U.S.’s long history of manifesting destiny with violence and nationalist rhetoric.

My artwork is about feminism, justice, and culture. The best I can do, I think, is make my work with integrity, and offer it as a portal of connection to those willing to look.

Thank you for looking.

My favorite art experience of the year was teaching at the Governor’s Institute on the Arts (GIA) in Castleton, Vermont this summer. I spent two thrilling, immersive weeks on a college campus, teaching two classes a day to Vermont high school students, alongside an incredible array of arts faculty who became my good friends.

In my Fiber Art Class, we spent the first week learning to use a sewing machine and hand embroider by making tote bags. For the final project, students made Power Quilts, inspired by a series of videos about indigenous embroidery traditions such as the Mola of Panama, and the deep cultural power of fiber work like the quilts of Gee’s Bend, Alabama. Their creativity and curiosity were amazing, and I learned so much about teaching and seeing.

Another major part of this summer was helping my husband, Ian Goodnow, run for and win the State Representative seat for Windham District 9! I am very proud!

He knocked on an unbelievable number of doors and had countless conversations with our neighbors about what they need as Vermonters. My vote in our local primary in August counted for a great deal more than the one I cast for President in November.

If you are feeling small and helpless in the face of gruesome national politics, please consider getting informed and voting locally.

Another nourishing political act is looking at art in person.

Once again, please come to my show at The Putney School, opening January 10th -March 1st, 2025.

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I am a real person and live close to the gallery. If you email me, I can meet you there.

Though I attempt reform every year, I am a recalcitrant Grinch. You have my permission to have unhappy holidays, if you need it. I wish you the bracing calm of a snowy walk, when the cheer gets to be too much.

Thank you for your continued support of my work,

Ruth

I hope you had a safe holiday season, and are not bothering with New Year Resolutions.

Last week I completed a major commission, unlike anything I’ve done before. After seeing my work in St. Johnsbury, Jennifer contacted me with a proposal. Could I help her preserve a family heirloom?

The quilt in question is a classic Red and White pattern, made completely by hand by one of her paternal great grandmothers in the 1850’s or 60’s. The stitches are tiny! It has obviously been well-used for generations. The quilt shows significant wear, visible mending, and a variety of stains, including Jennifer’s dad’s nosebleed from the 1970’s.

The quilt came to me water stained and dimmed from fifteen years in a box. Jennifer wanted the quilt back in her life, but it was too fragile for daily use. I proposed turning it into a relief sculpture that could be mounted on the wall, which I’d never actually done before. Jennifer entrusted me with the quilt anyway.

The first nerve-wracking step was to wash the quilt, for the first time in a while and possibly the last time ever. I did my research and scrubbed out my bathtub. It took a vegan stain stick, gentle detergent, distilled vinegar, color-safe Oxiclean, and four tubfuls of water to wash, then two days and every towel in the house to dry. Although the nosebleed is forever, many of the water stains from storage lifted out nicely, revealing the bright, beautiful contrast that made the whole country bonkers for red and white quilts for a century.

The next task was to make the stretcher that the quilt would be mounted on. I hadn’t built a canvas stretcher since college, because the main thing I learned in Painting class was that I didn’t want to paint at all. With the help of my dad and his wood shop, I was able to build the giant 4 by 6 foot stretcher to mount the quilt on. Once the canvas was stretched onto the frame, I was finally ready to start the piece.

The original quilt is quite thin. To add volume, I stapled thick batting over the frame and basted thin batting to the underside of the quilt. My goal was to create wrinkles and folds that evoke a quilt someone is snuggled under, or on a bed someone has just left.

The color was brightest around the border and in the corners, with the worst wear and staining in the middle. This informed the final composition. I maintained the red border as the quilt’s original ‘frame,’ then arranged the folds to conceal stains and create movement.

After what felt like a lifetime of prep, it was finally time to sew the composition into place. This was not complicated, but it was unwieldy and uncomfortable. I could barely reach the center of the piece to sew through all the layers, and frequently had to crawl underneath to locate a loose thread or lift the whole thing onto my shoulder to pull the needle through.

After three days of this awkward but meticulous hand-sewing, everything was in place. The finishing step was to secure the outer edges to the back of the frame, stapling through a muslin border rather than the original quilt. Although Jennifer gave me permission to alter the quilt, I decided to construct the final piece so that the quilt remained completely intact.

The final outcome is just as I intended, if not better. I am proud that I was able to capture the quilt’s graphic beauty and honor it’s lifetime of service. Now, it can be a part of Jennifer’s life, safe and celebrated.

If you have a quilt or textile that you would like turned into a relief sculpture like this, I am taking commissions.

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If you need me, I’ll be calling my reps to demand a ceasefire.

Ruth

Despite a year of successes and joys, I do not want to fill a newsletter with reminiscences and cheer. Nor do I want to host a debate about the root causes and justifications and divided ideologies that has led to the current humanitarian crisis in Gaza, which is constantly on my mind.

Instead, I want to share my sincere gratitude for your continued support of my art.

Thank you for your attention and encouragement. I look forward to sharing new works and opportunities with you in the New Year.

Until then, I hope you and your loved ones are safe.

-Ruth

I hope you’re planning delicious sides for my birthday dinner. I’ll be turning 32 on Thanksgiving Day this year.

In the tradition of birthdays and end-of-year holidays, I’ve been reflecting on the last year. I did a lot of cool stuff that I feel good about. I started a quilt series called Comforters. I had my biggest commission ever. I got SlipCover to California, with so much help! I dressed up as a lobster.

This newsletter has been a faithful recording of everything that has turned out well in the end, but I haven’t included many outright failures.

My online shop is a failure.

I’ve never really wanted to run a shop, but I thought I had to. It seems like all the successful art girlies on instagram are doing it so effortlessly. But the cost has been too great. It costs too much actual money, in hosting and transaction fees. It costs too much in time, staging and editing product photos, making product listings, marketing, packing, and shipping. It takes too much creativity and focus that I’d rather put towards the work that really interests me, and, for that matter, interests you.

As a birthday gift to myself, I am shutting the shop down at 9pm on November 25th, also known as Small Business Saturday.

Until then, the following pieces (and a few others) are for sale. Please consider giving someone you love a unique piece of art for the holidays, whether it is by me or another artist you admire.

I had a scary medical issue in the spring that involved a lot of uncertainty and feeling generally terrible for about six weeks. For comfort, I spent hours doing free-form, intuitive patchwork, trying to enjoy the quiet motions of hand craft during that hard time. I am okay now! When I felt better, I mounted these mini quilts onto canvases to make them easy to hang up. I call them “Paintings,” and I hope they can bring a splash of color to someone who needs a little brightness, like I did.

Shop "Paintings"

The Original Red Snake is the first plushie I ever made! Using all my favorite red fabrics, I made this almost 9-foot snake out of sheer curiosity. She won me a micro-grant, starred in a pandemic photo project, and generally launched a new phase of my art process. I want her to go to a good home.

Buy the Original Red Snake

We’ve come a long way from the original red. This Regal Ruffle snake is made from fabrics my sisters brought back from Rwanda, mixed with nostalgic prints from my personal collection. I’m really proud of this one, for showing how far I’ve come as a maker and artist.

Buy the Regal Ruffle Snake

This plushie was inspired by Park Jimin from the Korean musical supergroup, BTS. I am not kidding.

Buy Fancy Snake

It has been so fun seeing all the places people have put the SlipCover sticker! She’s gracing a lot of laptops, water bottles, notebooks, and bulletin boards. Although the hassle was high and the profit was low on these stickers, I’m really glad I had them made.

There are only 100 stickers left. I mail each one in a funky envelope with a handwritten note. Orders of four or more come with a special gift! Look how good at sales I am!

Buy a Sticker

Extra: If you’re in San Jose, you can see SlipCover in person at the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles until January 7th, 2024. And then buy a sticker in the gift shop!

To support my work for free, please share this newsletter with someone you think would enjoy my work.

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I hope you have a delicious, safe, heartwarming holiday.

If you need me, I’ll be 32 and mashing potatoes.

-Ruth

I am proud and nervous to present the latest and largest addition to my Comforters series. This one reads ‘the Possibilities are Relentless,’ in a jangly, aggressive composition of pink and green checkerboard.

I’m proud because it came out even more accurately than I had hoped, but nervous because it is an extremely honest and uncomfortable illustration of my own internal experience. A while ago, I stumbled across a question that stopped me in my tracks;

“Does it often happen that nearly every thought immediately and automatically suggests an enormous number of ideas?”

This is exactly how I experience consciousness. It is both thrilling and totally exhausting. I am not trying to brag or divulge a serious diagnosis. Mortifyingly, among my enormous number of ideas, it had never occurred to me that this way of thinking could be articulated, or that not everyone experiences thought in this way.

But…the possibilities are relentless. This piece is about all the art I’ll never be able to make. It is about the unending scroll of content on my phone, watching countless people shove their creativity into the void and wondering how to keep up. It is about the breathtaking scope of human conflict, the bearing down of outrage and uncertainty every time I turn on the kitchen radio.

Which possibilities feel relentless to you?

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The smaller text reads “I dreamt my hair was spaghetti.” I did dream that. Humor is also relentless, and art is embarrassing, and I needed to drive my point home with a serving of cathartic silliness. It also invites a viewer to lean closer, to parse the cursive and be rewarded with a goofy concrete noun. Spaghetti is an icon of infinite composition and entropy, after all, as no two plates are exactly the same.

Making and showing these Comforters, especially this one, has required huge vulnerability, much more than my more technical, conceptual sculptures.

The phrases I choose are distillations of my fears and desires, and making them is an intimate, tender act of self-care. Even though they are brightly colored and tinged with humor, showing them feels like exposing my soft underbelly to the whole world.

What gives me courage to share them is the recognition in people’s eyes when they see my work. I am not alone in being overwhelmed by choice, or henpecked by productivity culture, or let down by diet culture, or filled with feminist rage.

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As of yet, I don’t have a place or time nailed down to exhibit this series. If you know of a gallery, museum, or publication that feels like a good fit for my deepest truths, please tell me by leaving a comment or emailing me at ruthshafer@gmail.com.

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Now that this huge emotional ordeal is complete, I will be starting a holiday tittie commission for an extremely cool friend.

If you know someone who deserves a shockingly original piece of art for the holidays, I have a handful of commission slots open.

Fill out this form and I'll be in touch!

Or you can find plushies, paintings, and stickers in my online shop.

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As always, the best way to support me for free is to share my work with others. Please forward this newsletter, follow me on instagram, or spend some time on my website.

In other news, Ian and I have been watching all the SAW movies I missed when I was in middle school. Happy Spooktober 🎃

If you need me, I’ll be dressed as imitation crab for Halloween.

Cheers,

Ruth

P.S. Thank you to Rae Heller for helping me hoist the quilt and take pictures!

SlipCover is comfortably installed in the Excellence in Fibers VIII onsite exhibition at the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles, until January 7th, 2024!

I went to San Jose to attend the opening, and was floored by the power of the show as a whole. Please go see it if you are able.

Demetri Broxton is a curator at the Museum of African Diaspora and a fiber artist himself. He curated an exhibit that showcases not only the breathtaking variety within fiber art, but the depth and intricacy of the human experience. I was moved by the narratives woven (sometimes literally) through the show, by and about women and BIPOC artists. The massive spectre of Heavy, by Andi Arnovitz, illustrates the immensity of life lost in the Syrian civil war; Terrain by Sugandha Gupta, renders the intimacy of losing her sight due to albinism. I haven’t stopped thinking about how fiber is the medium strong enough to unify these myriad, complicated issues, able to soothe, swaddle, and challenge in equal turn.

One highlight of the show was meeting Theda Sandiford, the artist who created the piece Blackity Black Blanket. In the January edition of Fiber Art Now, our pieces were printed in conversation with each other and sit facing each other in the gallery in San Jose. With over 20,000 zip ties and a reclaimed fishing net, this piece illustrates the countless microagressions she faces as a Black woman, and the materiality of oppression. She is currently working on an entire apartment of zip-tie blankets, due to open at the Brooklyn Museum next year.

It is a huge honor to be one of the seventeen artists featured in this exhibit. If you’d like to see more of the show, you can watch Theda’s recap on instagram, my photo and video recaps on instagram, and see the unabridged Excellence in Fibers VIII show in the January Issue of Fiber Art Now magazine. If you’re near Brattleboro, I’ll lend you my copy.

I had an amazing time at the opening! My husband, Ian, and I had been on a spectacular vacation in San Francisco the week prior, my sister Mim drove down from Oakland, and my parents came all the way from Vermont to be there. I got to wear this funky sheer overdress I made super last minute (you can watch the struggle unfold here and here), and finally got to meet the museum staff I’ve been emailing for months. As you know, it was a huge ordeal to get SlipCover to San Jose, and I relished every moment of seeing her installed. Thank you again to all who donated, networked, and cheered us on through that ordeal, your support still makes me cry.

Now I’m back in Brattleboro, brimming with ideas after seeing so much art at SFMoMA, the DeYoung Museum, and SJMQT.

Good thing, too, because suddenly, it’s that time of year again.

(Truly competitive gift-givers know what I’m talking about.)

If you want a one-of-a-kind, lovingly customized, unbelievably special gift, handcrafted and delivered by December 15th, you are reading the right newsletter.

Give a baby a plushie snake! Give your best friend a boob cushion! Give your therapist an abstract painting! Give yourself a massive wall hanging that says how you feel!

“We get it, Ruth. But how?”

Just fill out this form, and I’ll be in touch.

Fill Out Commission Form

If you don’t want to wait, there are large and small works ready in my shop.

Plushies and Paintings and Stickers!

Thank you again for supporting my work. All I want for the holidays is for my art to be shared. Please forward this newsletter to those who might enjoy it.

If you need me or some firewood, I’ll be dealing with the massive tree that fell in our yard last week.

Cheers,

Ruth