My work documents the human spirit and the powerful insights that allow people to find a sense of belonging within their community. The public plays a vital role in the outcome of my work, taking a journey with me that can last up to two years. I produce multi-media installations that include paintings, audio, social media, slideshows, video, and social engagement. Self-aware subjects with strong belief systems fascinate me and draw me in.
A few thoughts I had about the artist I know and love.
Creatives and artists often don’t live in the mainstream. So whatever is “trending” now they are YEARS beyond that mindset.
They’re innovators, expanding the way we see and experience the world around us.
They have an essential role in healing, teaching, giving us new ways to think and observe everything, storytelling, stabilizing the economy, revisioning history, and bridging gaps.
Artists are the fiber of transformation, they are visionaries, and a precious resource for building our communities.
In her film, “Belonging” local artist and director, Ruth Chase documents the stories of people living in Nevada County, including Shelly Covert, spokesperson for the Nevada City Rancheria, Nisenan Tribe.
The film is an initiative of Nevada County Art Council and funded in part by California Arts Council through its Artists in Communities Program. Chase and Covert are scheduled to show the film during this week’s 17th Annual Wild & Scenic Film Festival comes to Nevada City and Grass Valley.
The pair are scheduled to participate in activities such as opening reception, art shows, fireside chats, coffee talks, workshops and film panels throughout the five-day environmental and adventure film festival that attracts filmmakers, change-makers, and activists from around the globe.
The two sat down and answered a few questions. Chase had this to say:
What inspired you to make the film, “Belonging?”
“Belonging” is about how people find a sense of belonging through the land, the earth, and the environment. I was initially interested in examining the unique connection people have with the land they were born on and if that connection changes when residing in a place other than their birthplace.
“The Deeper We Go, The Brighter We Shine” painting with Elaine Leslie
Painted in collaboration with Elaine Love Leslie by Ruth Chase. The painting reflects her life story and the wisdom she has as a result of growing up in Venice, CA. This was the final painting in the West of Lincoln Project, completed in early 2017. Painted by Ruth Chase.
Elaine with her two beautiful daughters in 2016
Elaine Love Leslie
b. 1969 | Sunset Ave.
There is a real gift in darkness. That’s why the moon disappears and we have seasons. The dark is necessary in order for the regrowth. The seed lives in darkness before it emerges into its full potential.
I was five years old in 1974. That is when my single mother, in pursuit of freedom, moved us from Colorado to our new home on Sunset Ave in Venice. The house was nothing more than a shack, and it was already the home to a thousand cockroaches. “I’m going to paint the kitchen yellow,” she said, and I remember hearing her voice crack with both bravery and fear. As a child, one of my favorite things to do was watch my mother be brave.
Venice was my greatest spiritual teacher, for there was sacredness there, an unspoken law of survival. You will know danger and become intimate with fear. You will learn your strength, for it will be called on often in the ritual of being a child in the wild.
I found God in everything and everyone. I heard messages of love preached by crazy people conversing with angels in the form of sand. My home was a safe haven of lost souls. We welcomed all. My childhood was filled with nights of wine and weed, and conversations about art, spirituality, politics, liberation, music, literature, and madness. These were the sacred hymns that lulled my young bones to sleep; these were the songs of my youth.
Every Saturday morning Ruth posts a question about our sense of belonging on the I AM HERE Facebook Group page. Each response informs her work, using social engagement as a tool for artmaking and engaging the community in conversation.
Ruth has been exploring ideas of belonging for over three years now, having a direct impact on her life and work as an artist.
The first year of BELONGING we asked, how do you find and maintain your sense of belonging through the land that we share? This year, with I AM HERE, we’re asking, how do women find their sense of belonging in a rural county? I welcome you to participate too.
On February 16, the weekly question will be live and in person.
Belonging really happens best when we are with each other in person, men we need you too.
I AM HERE is the name of the second year of BELONGING. I AM HERE questions are meant to engage the community in a conversation about women and to foster a community connection.
I AM HERE is an initiative of Nevada County Art Council led by Artist Ruth Chase, generously funded in part by California Arts Council through its Artists in Communities Program.
FEB 16 | SAT 9 – 10:30AM
Saturday Morning Question – In Person w/ Ruth Chase
Summer Thyme in Grass Valley INVITATION
I spent the past twenty years making art under the radar. Until 2015 when I started creating installations that included paintings about positive social change.
BEING INVISIBLE
Being invisible was a tactic I adapted from an early age to avoid drama. As I got older, I would do anything to avoid conflict. As an artist, I played it safe so I wouldn’t say the wrong thing. With time it seemed to say the wrong thing was worse than saying anything at all. It was an inner struggle, but it felt safe and secure.
BAD ART STUDENT
I needed to get out of Los Angeles. I needed to escape the broken girl that came from the streets of Venice. It was the 80’s, and I was attending the San Francisco Art Institute, totally in love with conceptual art, it was an exclusive club for smart artist people. I hoped that no one would notice how un-smart I felt compared to those savvy thinkers and prolific art makers on Chestnut Street. I wanted nothing more than to be as smart and interesting as they were. In school I would study for countless hours, only to get barely passing grades, it was so demoralizing and painful. I would drown my sorrows by marathon painting, keeping to myself. My teachers, Fred Martin, Angela Davis, Carlos Villa, and Julius Hatofsky were my heroes, my mentors, I wanted them to rescue me, to tell me how to create work that mattered. My work was a whisper against the backdrop of big ideas and loud voices.
Contact Ruth if you would like more information 530.409.2330
“West of Lincoln” w/ audio clips of participants 48 x 60″, by Ruth Chase
West of Lincoln Painting
Original painting, acrylic on stretched canvas, includes audio clips of participants,
price does not include tax or shipping.
$7,500.00
PARTICIPANTS in “West of Lincoln” painting:
Ric Clayton, Jenny Moore-Prather, Anna M. McGuirk, Ananda Jaynes with Mom and Joseph Anson, Noah Pachnowski, Dylan Pachnowski, Jon Reneau, Mark Rosenberg for Cheapskates, Doug Mug Swanson, Hassan DeSalles with Jason Sugars, Michael Cramer, Monica Leyba, Joey Leyba, Salvador Gonzales, Shannon Robinson LeFort for Bob Dean Robinson, Xavier Rimmington, Campbell Rimmington, Christina Brunk Stroh for J.Kevin Brunk, Bingwa, Stacy McDannold, Bernardo Charca, Jeff Cody Morris, Colleen Graham, Dale Henderson, Jim Fallon & Brady Dalton, Melanie Camp & Tricka, Luciano Mota, Carolyn Rios, Roxanne Rossi Kovak, Tamira L. James, Beth Allyn/MsVenice, Kristina Peterson, Renee Smith, Mona Perez Freedman, Carrie Hayrup for Eugene Tarango, Laura Ceballos, Richard (Dopey) Cortez and Robert (Trippy) Ayres, Francisco Letelier, Kori Cody Worman for George Del Rio, Miguel Bravo, Joann Goodwin, Sybil Roberson, Denise Woods and Gena Lasko.
BIG THANKS to Ray Rae, David Scott, Mathew Martin, Care Burns, and Steven Luciano for use of their photos.
The West of Lincoln painting was part of the West of Lincoln Project. This project was more than just an art exhibition, it was the voice of the community.
When I started painting, I would follow a voice that would come forth from a spirit on the other side asking me to see them. I had no idea what I was doing, I would just paint, in time I understood that I could use channeling from nonphysical energy to guide my work. I remember distinctly that this spirit was eager to be seen and released. While I still use this method in some of my work, I am so much more aware of what is happening and far more particular of who I channel.
“White Face”
oil on canvas
6 x 4′
1990
by Ruth Chase
Ocampo Collection
What does it mean to be a woman, a question I have never explored until this very moment.
From an early age, I noticed that being a “girl” put me in a place of vulnerability and I was very aware that physical danger was awaiting me if I wasn’t careful. So as a young adult “woman” I would make sure that my clothes and persona were tough enough to scare away predators.
Now I look back and see that it wasn’t until bearing a child, at the age of 40, that I began to connect with my womanhood. I was getting in touch with my body and its functions specific to having a child and becoming awakened to the physical characteristics that make me a WOMAN. I loved being pregnant, I loved my body and being able to hold another universe within.
I have spent a lot of time rejecting the expectations put on me by the outside world of what a woman is or should be, or should not be. I have never been sure of how I fit into the expectations of the world around me. I also, at times, did not want to own the power and blessings that come with femininity. On the inside, I felt like I hadn’t decided if I wanted to be feminine and on the outside, I knew to be a tomboy or punk sent a message to leave me alone, I’m not open for this “girl” business. Sometimes I wonder if I would have chosen to be a woman in this lifetime if I were given a choice before I was born. I suppose I have also been pissed off about being a woman, now that I think about it. So far, the most amazing thing about being a woman has been birthing my daughter, who by the way is VERY girly and VERY feminine. I’m having an ‘aha!’ moment writing this. I may even need a good cry.
I am so out of my mind excited to say that I will have the most challenging paintings I have ever made exhibiting in the Museum of Northern California Art. I am so proud to be representing VENICE in this exhibition about the value of street art to our communities.
MUSEUM OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA ART
900 ESPLANADE
CHICO, CA, 95926 (MAP)
Beyond the Frame Panel Discussion | August 26 INVITATION
Beyond the Frame Exhibition
July 19 – September 2, 2018 INVITATION
“Never Forget Where You Come From, Always Remember Where You’re Going” by Ruth Chase will be exhibiting this month at part of Beyond the Frame. Street art often has a reputation as part of a subculture that rebels against authority, although it can also express a political practice, and serves as just one tool in an array of resistance techniques.
Like some forms of street art, murals are often collaborative and collective art pieces, functioning to empower social bonding, an assertion of a community’s presence in a certain space, and articulate a community’s stance on local and global topics such as historical events and civil rights. Some murals have also been created in defiance to the law (like street art), as others have been commissioned by businesses or other patrons. It can be argued that public art of both categories can add aesthetic improvement to the daily lives of residents, and visitors to the community.
By virtue of being visually provocative or beautiful, public artworks may be easier magnets for community support and thereby effective political tools. For the communities it exists in, public art also provides access to beauty, creative work, and cultural pride.
