Yesterday the expansive Northwest glass-art community lost a bit of its shine as news spread that prominent Ballard artist Ginny Ruffner died this week. She was 72.
An indefatigable creative whirlwind — to which her notoriously wild hair seemed to attest — Ruffner hit the Seattle arts scene running when she arrived here from Atlanta in 1985.
Best known for her pioneering glass artwork, in which she perfected and pushed the skill of lampworking (meticulous tool-shaping of molten glass), Ruffner was considered one of the best practitioners in the country and influenced countless other artists.
Her thriving artistic career was almost cut short in 1991, when she was gravely injured in a car accident. She spent six weeks in a coma, at which point doctors advised there was no reason to keep her on the respirator.
Ruffner’s astonishing recovery is chronicled in the 2010 documentary A Not So Still Life (excerpted here). She came out of the coma partially paralyzed but undaunted in her artistic pursuits.
“My brain is fine,” she says in the documentary. “I walk funny. I talk slow but so what? I’m still here and still creating.”
Seven years later, in a Museum of Glass profile, an interviewer asked Ruffner, “Is art something that you have to do?” That’s like asking, “Do you choose to be brown-eyed today?” she answered. “It’s not a choice.” It wasn’t just a witty response: She was making work and exploring new mediums through her last days.
Ginny Ruffner’s playful bench “A Place to Regard Beauty,” in the Olympic Sculpture Park, was one of many forays into different mediums. (Daniel Spils)
In addition to her enormous trove of colorful glass pieces, which often sprout with flowers and fruit, Ruffner made work on a much larger scale, such as the giant mechanical flower pot (“The Urban Garden,” 2011) Downtown at Seventh Avenue and Union Street; the glimmery green-and-purple Project Aurora, which towers over the lobby of the National Nordic Museum; and “A Place to Regard Beauty” (2014), a silver Seussian bench commissioned by Seattle Art Museum for the Olympic Sculpture Park.
Ruffner often wove a playful lightness through her work, reflected in her polka-dotted glasses.
I remember being surprised and delighted by her 2018 exhibition Reforestation of the Imagination, on view first at Mad Art Studio in South Lake Union and later at the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery. Ruffner created realistic glass stumps and logs on a barren landscape that — when viewed through an AR app she helped develop — came alive with curious dancing flowers drawn from her vivid mind’s eye.
Revisiting the work yesterday, I couldn’t help but think of the vast expanses of land burned by wildfires in California, and hopes for regrowth, as well as Ruffner’s deeply personal and powerful dream of renewal.
The Garfield High School jazz band performed in the 2024 Essentially Ellington competition (seen here) and will head back this year. (Gilberto Tadday/Jazz at Lincoln Center)
For lighter news we look to the world of local music, where singer/songwriter Brandi Carlile now adds “Oscar nominee” to her lengthy list of accolades.
Announced today, Carlile is in Best Song contention for “Never Too Late,” which she co-wrote and co-sang with Elton John in the documentary Elton John: Never Too Late. Originally from Maple Valley, the Seattle star has already won 11 Grammy Awards — perhaps now she’s angling for an EGOT. Find out if she earns the “O” during the Academy Awards (March 2).
In other local music news, four Northwest high school jazz bands have been named among the top 30 in the nation. But the honor is just the beginning for these young musicians.
Next they’ll compete in the 30th annual Essentially Ellington competition at Lincoln Center in New York City (May 7-11). Seattle-area bands have a long history of crushing it at this competition, so Bothell, Mountlake Terrace, Garfield and Roosevelt students — make sure you’re practicing!
Meanwhile the University of Washington is showcasing another example of Seattle music cred: The Rocket newspaper, launched in 1979 and run from 1986 – 2000 by longtime music writer Charles R. Cross, who died in August.
The display of issues from the grunge heyday is on view in the Allen Library North Lobby and Suzzallo Library ground floor (through Feb. 15). Accompanying the exhibit is a thorough digital guide to the archive, as well as a talk by John Keister, Almost Live! alum and former Rocket writer (Jan. 28, 5 p.m.).
Finally: If you work in any part of the local music industry, the Washington Nightlife Music Association is asking that you fill out the WA State Music Census (online survey due by Jan. 31). The hope is to better quantify the value of the Northwest music industry and seek financial support and investment accordingly.
Charlie Chaplin’s ‘Gold Rush’ (1925) is screening as part of STG’s Silent Movie Mondays. (STG Presents)
January always feels like the longest month. Luckily there are plenty of unusual and artful ways to pass these cold days.
< STG’s Paramount Theatre is showing the Charlie Chaplin film The Gold Rush (1925) as part of its popular Silent Movie Mondays series (Jan. 27 at 7 p.m.) In this iconic picture, the “Little Tramp” faces all manner of obstacles in Alaska in search of striking it rich. Bonus: The screening is accompanied by a live orchestra performing the score.
< The third annual Disabled List Comedy Festival is happening at the Northwest Film Forum and Theatre Off Jackson (Jan. 24 – 26). The lineup includes visiting comedians Hayden Kristal and Gibran Saleem and Seattle-based co-hosts Dan Hurwitz and Kayla Brown.
< Seattle author Kira Jane Buxton (who penned the popular and very funny pet-zombie novel Hollow Kingdom) is back with a new title, Tartufo. She’ll read from the Italy-set tale of tempestuous truffle-hunting at Third Place Books Lake Forest Park (Jan. 29 at 7 p.m.).
< One last alert — Feb. 2 is your last chance to admire John Grade’s massive and glorious “Middle Fork,” the tree facsimile that has hung in the Seattle Art Museum’s lobby since 2017. As planned, it will be disassembled to make way for another piece (so far unnamed but arriving in June). Eventually, Grade plans to bring the cedar pieces back to the Northwest woods, to decay near the base of the hemlock that served as the original inspiration.
Topics: Arts, ArtSEA, Features, Music, Things to do