Artist’s Bio
Ruth Block, MA, MFA, comes from a bloodline of artists; her late father, the abstract expressionist painter Saul Arnold, studied with The Art Students League® of New York and was prominent in Tampa, Florida for decades. From her maternal grandmother, Jane Steiner, an early member of the Chicago Society of Artists, connected with the Chicago Art Institute, Block took on not only the rigors of being a professional studio artist from an early age, but the integral philosophy that one remains a student of the field for life – a constant self-challenging and pushing boundaries beyond comfort zones if one is to remain vital. (One must never pastiche even oneself.)
The artist has concurrently spent a lifetime teaching and facilitating art and creative process to individuals and students in numerous venues, including the San Francisco Bay Area, Mexico, New Mexico, Georgia, and parts of the Midwest. Block expanded her classroom internationally and making figure drawing and painting even more accessible in1988 when she launched Artists InterActive Video Productions’ “Life Drawing Video Workshops” series, and was proclaimed in July 1991 by The Artist’s Magazine to be one of the “Ten best Teachers On Tape”. (www.aivideo.com), then added on Painting The Figure in Watercolor Parts I & II in 1996.
"There is not a medium I will not try and experiment with to explore nature: inner and outer worlds and their interconnectedness; what it is to be human, what meanings drive us to express and/or communicate, or to manifest something that was not there before- taking on the task of artistic midwifery. The process – of life, of soul touching- is the mystery to be entered into, with curiosity as to what will emerge. Art to me becomes both documentation of this journey and dialogue with myself and others."
San Francisco based Mindfulness Psychotherapist Alex Silberstein, MFT, MFC, artist, art therapist, and former colleague of the artist comments:
"Ruth is a technically accomplished artist whose work is strikingly beautiful, intriguing and psychologically complex. She balances a strong appreciation of formal qualities, a masterful ability at rendering and an emotional depth."