While currently residing in San Diego, Ruth has had a close relationship with art since picking up a brush and canvas while a child in small-town Wisconsin. One of her favorite childhood memories was when her father took her to the only local art store (Sherwin Williams) and simply said “pick something out”. The dilemma of choice has stuck with her all these days and is perhaps the reason why her art takes inspiration from such a variety of styles and techniques. Since then, Ruth has explored the worlds of jewelry, collage, mosaics, graphic design… But on that day with her father, she walked out the store as an animated child with her first set of paints and a blank canvas.
Creating has been the only constant in Ruth’s life and an important form of self-expression. While her bachelors degree is in Vocational Rehabilitation, it was the various art classes that inspired her. She experimented with drawing, design, art metals and weaving. Her art took inspiration from her love of dancing, hiking, backpacking, and nature, imbuing her work with movement, life and a palate as varied as an expansive field of wildflowers gracing the horizon. Ruth is constantly experimenting with new materials and techniques striving to embody in her work the beauty and excitement of the world she sees around and within herself.
While a mother to three kids in Madison, Wisconsin, Ruth crafted jewelry, as well as a line of art kits that were purchased all over the US. When she opened her own gallery and art supply store, focusing on home decor, she developed a series of classes on mosaics, glass painting, handmade lampshades and other projects for the home. Shortly thereafter, she enrolled as a part-time student, studying Graphic Design & Illustration. Going back to college was an opportunity for her to continue her education as an artist. Ruth has always found inspiration in the art of others and has never found a limit to what she can learn from their experience.
Since moving to San Diego, California in 2010, Ruth revisited many of the mediums she used in the past, eventually discovering a new love and passion for abstract painting. Combining her years of experience as an artist of many mediums with an abstract style and a large swath of paints and materials, she has been experimenting with layers of contrast. Creating images that dance and play in the viewers imagination, her abstract paintings have been described as anything from tranquil and relaxing to thrilling and startling. She embraces her brush as her dance partner, and, with them, swings across the canvas in a chorus of control and spontaneity. While Ruth paints with a goal, she is always excited to stumble into new territory as the materials she experiments with lead her in unexpected directions.
Since Ruth works with many layers of various mediums, she find acrylics often suit my needs best. Their fast-drying properties lends itself to adding washes and glazes which reveal the layers below. Her paintings include textured mediums, chalk pastels, miscellaneous papers, graphite, charcoal and metal leafing. All of these elements give her work depth and complexity.
Ruth uses a number of different tools to achieve the finished product. She favors her various brushes and palette knives but also has a tendency of discovering new tools around her home. She finishes each piece by painting the edges of the canvas and adding a clear satin UV protective finish.
Ruth’s work can be found throughout the country in private collections and commercial enterprises.
Ruth hopes her art will lead you on a journey to unexplored horizons to discover a rush of rich colors and sublime textures or an ocean of smooth gradients and endless layers.
Adelman Fine Art represents Ruth Fromstein in San Diego California.
