YOU VOTED, and it happened, I was awarded the Venice Female Legendary Artist Award, Ruth Chase, MB Boissonnault, Robin Murez
“Women: Independence, Interdependence”
by Ruth Chase
acrylic, thread, cotton yarn on cardboard with video
24 x 48″
I am exploring independence and interdependence of women. Through the use of cardboard, acrylic paint, thread, and cotton yarn, this piece is a meditation on how pain is stored in the female body. With phrases like I am afraid to be vulnerable, I am not lovable, and childhood fear taught me not to trust, were written on each disc, and used to create the breast element in the work. Within the work, there are references to gender dysphoria, menses as independence and interdependence, and the female body as being in service.
THE ART OF COLLABORATION – RUTH CHASE AND CHANTELLE GOLDTHWAITE
The theme in this series is about the relationship women have with independence and interdependence. Through a series of unscripted discussions with Chantelle Goldthwaite, the work has unfolded.
Now in Year Three, Belonging manifests as HOME, and elicits perspectives on cultural identity from our less represented populations. Ideas of “home” are being explored through the lens of art salons, our gold country history, our recovering native population, and our recent immigrants. Critical bridge building tools are emerging through creative practices, as we meet. Saturday Morning Question ran from 2017 – 2020.
HOME is an initiative of Nevada County Arts Council led by Artist Ruth Chase, generously funded in part by the California Arts Council through its Artists in Communities Program.
This a daily account of artist and mother, Ruth Chase. A post a day about her experiences during the Covid-19 during social distancing. Living in Northern California between Sacramento and Lake Tahoe. Feel free to comment or write you’re own daily experience at the bottom of the page.
JUNE 19
Dear Sadie,
I suspect when it comes to COVID we are 100% being lied to, and we will not really know until a decade passes. However, I still feel the same about waring masks. Not because we always need to, because it puts people at ease even when they are feeling fear. It’s a community statement, not a political statement. Also, because I can’t know anything for sure.
I refuse to live in fear or do something to make someone else fearful. Everyday is a struggle, my only goal is to keep from wanting to give up and being there for Adrienne. Staying positive and staying away from catastrophic thinking. No one knows anything for sure with so many opinions that have proof flying around. I most certainly know one thing for sure, that hope and being positive in the face of chaos is a lifeline.
JUN 8
JUN 3
Let’s not confuse neutrality with the right to pause and take thoughtful action.
JUN 2
News – Gossip?
MAY 31
The end of BELONGING Saturday Morning Question. Ended on a quiet note because of all the unrest in the world. I’m still processing, but will comment on it at some point.
MAY 14
Dear Sadie,
I don’t believe there is one truth, I believe there are many truths that coexist at the same time, that is why I have to follow my own truth.
MAY 13
Dear Sadie,
It’s my baby’s 15th birthday today. Being in quarantine is not her birthday wish. There has been lots of sadness about not being able to celebrate with her new group of girlfriends. Even though we’re doing well, with lots of talking and listening, it is also a time of challenging mental health for many families with teens.
MAY 10
To be still, to listen
To my breath
The beat of my heart
The sound of my soul
My personal path
On the collective
MAY 9
Dear Sadie,
I’ve started a weekly live program on Instagram with Chantelle called THE ART OF COLLABORATION. @cgoldthwaite and I have decided to work in cardboard for a collaborative piece recorded on IGTV. We will each be doing our own piece that will come together as possibly a diptych. We wanted a way to inspire each other and you to be creative during the shelter in place. it’s being totally made up as we go along.
MAY 7
Dear Mom,
I wish I could see you, seeing me being a mother. A wild child and also your caretaker, we were quite an odd match. It was you and I, always. I remember when you were living, grabbing onto you like a child, though in my 20s. I was sad that you would die one day because you were all I had. You taught me humility, compassion, unconditional love, and the importance of loving people, all people. It wasn’t until I became an adult, beyond your departure that I really implemented what I learned from you by the example you lived effortlessly.
MAY 6, 2020
Dear Sadie,
I hung out with my girlfriend Heather the other day. We’ve been getting together in her backyard. I bring my cooler over with my own cocktail and appetizer and we set across the table from each other. At one point I was overwhelmed with emotion. I realized how much spacial intimacy I take up. A gentle lean into a whisper, touching her knee as a hand gesture to say, I care, or even a slap of the table with me belting out a big (spittle full) robust laugh was all shut down. I had this thought, was this what it is like to be a proper lady? How exhausting and how boring. Anyhow, it sucked.
MAY 2, 2020
Dear Sadie,
That’s it, I’m ready to put on my mask full time and resume my life.
MAY 1, 2020
Dear Sadie,
Adrienne’s birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks. She is beginning to feel really down about not just her birthday but thinking about all the events that were canceled over summer. A trip to Disneyland with my sister is one such event. It has been really hard lately, I can only imagine what it’s like to be her age and an only child. Sigh
APR 29, 2020
Dear Sadie,
Herd mentality makes more sense when you learn about how herd immunity works.
APR 27, 2020
Dear Sadie,
Its hard to know what authentic thoughts and feelings I’d have when I’m spoon-fed perspectives by “experts” with a limited insight diet.
APR 25, 2020
Dear Sadie,
Our home, the one I hated only months ago is becoming my dream home. We are working on the yard so we have a place to be during the summer, with shade and placed to sit. As of today, Nevada County West has 12 cases of Coronavirus.
APR 22, 2020
Dear Sadie,
I had a conversation with a family member the other day, in so much fear. It wasn’t like I disagreed with them. My take away after sifting through our conversation over and over the past few days was that I am always presented with fear, realities that are possible nightmares, but that I have a choice to hold my attention on solutions where there is less fear for me. My mantra yesterday was ….. Problem-solving is where hope lives, where innovation thrives. I just kept thinking about that. CHOICE: It’s an amazing place we live, here on earth. And choosing is one of the great experiences that we get to interact with.
APR 20, 2020
A REBIRTH A PIVOT
“Ruth, you will need to reinvent yourself after having a child. Don’t make plans to go back to where you were before you were pregnant; instead, plan on your rebirth. What you need in your new life will become visible. The more you resist change, the harder it will be.” Retrospective perspective.
I am in yet another rebirth with this quarantine, and I must drop what I thought about myself, my world, my home, my life, and allow a renewal, a pivot, to transform me.
If I remember correctly, the rebirth happened against my will. It took me screaming and clawing. I’m thinking I could learn from my past.
APR 19, 2020
Dear Sadie,
I have finally landed in a space I can call my own. I have a studio. For the past seven months, I’ve been struggling with on and off depression. I never realized just how vital my studio was to my mental health until it was taken away. And during this quarantine, it’s been painful not having a place to recalibrate, create, wonder. I’m here now writing to you, listening to the birds outside my window, dog at my feet. I can have my own thoughts here, I can be myself here.
My life as an artist in the studio, a 35 year practice and counting.
CREATING POSITIVE SOCIAL CHANGE PROJECTS
How do you take your current creative practice as a painter, photographer, sculptor, and turn it into something that can create positive social change? Through a series of inquiries, you will tap into a deeper sense of who you are and the resources you already have. In this two-hour interactive workshop, you will unravel the missing link between your medium and it becoming a community project. We will also review funding resources.
Let’s explore the missing pieces and how to turn your work into a community bridge-building project that can attract funding.
WHERE: ZOOM Meeting
WHEN: Thursday, April 16, 11 AM
REGISTER: Free, email Ruth at RuthChaseFineArt@ymail.com
REGISTER for Creating Positive Social Change Projects
If you have the means to pay for this class, thank you. You can choose as many increments of $5 as you wish. I will email you instructions for the class within 24 hours.
$10.00
“I attended Ruth’s workshop at the Business of Art. If only this class were longer, I could have spent all day working with Ruth”
Carol Turner
Artist | Community Activist
BIOGRAPHICAL PORTRAITURE
Creating narrative for art-making that is inspired through an interview.
Biographical Portraiture (BP) is the use of personal or collective biography to create an artwork. It can be literal or symbolic. Interviewing the subject is a tool used to gather content to depict a story, theme, commentary, or perspective. Research can be an alternative tool for gathering information other than an interview. While BP is often used to portray a single person, it can also illustrate themes and topics that reflect social issues. This class includes a followup phone call with Ruth.
BP is for artists working in any medium, looking for a new and inspiring way to create portraiture that incorporates storytelling. This class will provide useful tools that will push the traditional portrait and offer an exciting way of working that can be used for a single picture or for engaging the public on a broader scope. Best suited for artists who have a medium they’re already familiar with. The workshop that follows BP is Making Art in Service to Community, a workshop that dives deeper into the practices of working with others to create commentary.
BP is a two-part class. In this first class, we cover the basics of BP by practicing with someone you know first. In the second class, Making Art In Service To Community, we cover a more in-depth understanding of BP and working with the public.
Key skills you will learn
WHERE: Online at your convenience
WHEN: Wednesday, April 8, 11 AM followup ZOOM meeting optional
COST: BY DONATION ONLY
REGISTER for Online Class – Biographical Portraiture
This class includes a series of five videos that contain four lessons. Four PDF printouts, and a followup phone appointment with Ruth. PLEASE pay only what you can. Upon purchasing you will receive an email from Ruth with the link and password to begin.
$10.00
“Biographical Portraiture online class was an enriching experience for me as an artist and organizer, and also left me with excellent questions to explore in my own work. I found it added impeccable depth to the conversation of how to engage with telling other’s stories in a respectful, collaborative, and meaningful way. Ruth teaches with passion, expertise, inquiry, and honesty, all these traits combine fora compelling and invigorating experience any artist wanting to expand their work will appreciate.”
Mira Clark
Artist | Visibility Through Art Coordinator for CHIRP
existinspired.com
MORE CLASSES ON THE WAY
Last week Eliza Tudor of Nevada County Arts Council, Tracy Pepper of Color Me Human, Donn K. Harris of California Arts Council, and I were in #Miami for four days joining the #changenetwork of OF/BY/FORALL.
Women are an essential part of any community, yet their sense of belonging is often tied into gender roles, not always satisfying their sense of belonging. Mother, sister, partner, we all have women in our lives. I AM HERe is intended to mirror the voices of how men and women view women’s unique sense of belonging against the backdrop of our rural community. Lead artist Ruth Chase has sought to examine her own sense of belonging over the course of a year by asking questions through social media and taking her personal journey alongside the community. Now, the public is invited to share their own stories about themselves or the women in their lives by participating in the public art installation.
I struggle with the notion of what a woman is. My work explores what it means to be a woman and the struggle to understand all that entails. I create large intimate paintings from images that women have submitted and from selfies that my daughter has taken. I also create public art installations and video from public engagement projects.
Motherhood opened a world within me that is both painful and empowering. Causing me to reevaluate the roles I have resisted and submitted to, and how I see myself as a woman.
Using my daughters’ selfies, I am able to capture the complexity of the mother/daughter relationship. Experiencing my daughter’s adolescence has awoken memories, causing a deep reflection on how our childhood shapes us as women, and the role vulnerability plays in our development.
Laura Peterson
Special to The Union
January 15, 2019
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.
