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Ginny Ruffner has long since been recognized worldwide as one of the major artists of the modern glass movement. Ginny’s menagerie of glass sculptures are imbued with a combination of technical mastery and startling whimsical shapes and figures. Possessing extraordinary fine art skills, her uniquely narrative and sculptural pieces combine elements of painting, sculpture and art history. While many artists shy away from beauty and decoration, Ginny embraces it, “I feel like my purpose in life is to make beautiful things.”
A car accident in 1991 that almost ended her life at age thirty-nine. Ginny was a well established artist long before the crash and can now walk and talk again, however haltingly, and her art, once resumed, never signaled a break in either her vision or spirit. This art was and is exuberant, inclusive, fearless, and thought-provoking. It is an art unhindered by the supposed limitations of a difficult medium, glass, the traumatic event of the crash, or the frustrations of physical handicap.
“I’m big on turning lemons into lemonade,” Ginny remarks rather lightly.
A movie about Ginny’s life – titled Ginny Ruffner:A Not So Still Life just had its premier in Seattle’s international film festival, and won the audience award.
Click HERE to jump to the movie’s website.
Ginny received both her M.F.A and B.F.A. in drawing and painting from the University of Georgia. A recipient of an N.E.A. Fellowship, her earlier work uniquely merged the mediums of glassblowing and painting, culminating in her intricate, sculptural constructions. Public collections include the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC and Musee des Arts Decoratifs, Lausanne, Switzerland. Maurine Littleton Gallery in the Georgetown section of Washington, DC is her gallery, and the gallery shows her work at SOFA Chicago.
National Public Radio had just covered Ginny and had links to her work and to the movie –
click HERE to jump to the NPR article online.