When and where were you born?

July 2,1969 in New Rochelle, New York.

How many members do you have in your family?

Parents – Katherine, Alexander (who died in 1997), 2 sisters – Vera-Nike (11 mos. Apart), and Nina (8 years younger), husband – Steve (together since 1988), son – Max (born in 1999).

What, if any, experiences from your childhood and adolescence influence your interest and participation in art now?

My father was a painter/sculptor who worked in a home studio for countless hours, my mother was also a student of art and painter herself. Art was the main focus of our home, whether being displayed, created or discussed. We were constantly creating playhouses, murals, and furniture, so the natural progression for me was to study my passion outside of the home as well as within my childhood environments.

Why did you choose to become an artist?

I was in every available art class in high school, took Saturday classes at FIT, and went to SVA, which was the alma matter of both my mother and high school art teacher. There was never any question in my mind to do anything else.

How did you become an artist?

I double-majored at the School of Visual Arts with Fine Art and Art Education, and have been actively pursuing and living it since graduation in 1991.

Where did your interest in education come from?

As a sophomore at SVA, I took a class in Education, thinking that I may minor in it for a future job. I ended up loving teaching and double majored with Fine Art (Painting).

What are your interests, concerns and activities beyond art?

Teaching (New Rochelle High School since 1991, private lessons and community art centers in Pelham and New Rochelle – since 1988)

Curator – since 1988

Where do you find inspiration for your art?

Certain experiences affect my work more then others, heart surgery when I was a child as well as life experiences including interpersonal relationships, motherhood and the fragility of the human condition continue to influence me greatly.

The balance of life is often based on cellular matter, illness and conception are familiar experiences to all of us and yet these images can only be seen within the realm of science, I imagine these inner worlds within my work and try to emulate their processes.

Who are some of your favorite artists?

Female - Kiki Smith, Eva Hesse, Hannah Wilke, Louise Bourgeois, Frida Kahlo, Joan Snyder, Shazia Sikander, Sally Mann, Ana Mendieta, Marlene Dumas,

Male - Terry Winters, Francesco Clemente, Jim Dine, my father Alexander Rutsch, Paul Gauguin, Joseph Cornell, Egon Schiele

How does your late father’s art affect you?

I adore his work. It is full of individuality, originality, complexity, a great sense of color and texture. I have been greatly influenced by his use of mixed media, and I also carry on his sense of the work not being “precious”.

What are your creative, visual and conceptual concerns for the current pieces you are working on?

Small-scale gouache and ink drawings on handmade Indian papers – I like the texture and scale of the papers, and the uneven edges. They are frail and unique like our bodies.

Soft ground etchings of my body, my son’s, and my husband’s – working on a body of work of the links between us, the “skin” how it is our “Shell”

Larger acrylic and encaustic works exploring “cellular landscapes”, fertility issues

How my life is being “run” by things I can’t see or control (conception, cancer) I am imagining these inner worlds

What creative and technical methods do like to you use? Which techniques are you not fond of?

I try to create complex textures and layers within the medium I am using. I appreciate handmade surfaces like paper and wood panels; a porous surface is like skin and can be manipulated and layered to create a natural topography that cannot be created on basic canvas. The process of pushing and pulling between a medium and a surface create a more evident visual for the viewer.

What, if any, is the criteria for the artwork you create to “succeed” for you?

Good composition, “feels” right, I can find different things each time I look at it, people’s reaction

Please tell me about 3 pieces of your artwork that represent what you consider your most artistically/conceptually realized and/or works that challenge you or represent watersheds in your artistic growth.

I had bought these wonderful handmade Indian paper circles years ago, and they were in my studio since then. The circle overwhelmed me, and I didn’t know how to use these in my work. After the experience of the last few years, they seemed to be the perfect surface for these “cellular landscape” that I was working on. The circle lent itself so well to these “worlds” I wanted to create.

After my husband’s second bout with Lymphoma, he had to undergo a stem cell transplant. Because this treatment would leave him sterile, we banked sperm. After he made the one-year mark, we decided to try for another child. I underwent six tries of artificial insemination, unfortunately they were unsuccessful.  During this time we were contemplating invitro fertilization that would include taking hormones, egg retrieval and embryo implantation. (We decided against it – I didn’t want to take all the hormones.) While I was painting this series of works, I was imagining my ovaries making many eggs through the hormones, and the retrieval process of the needle sucking up the eggs. Images of my uterus, ovary, eggs, etc are visible, and the thin black invading line of the needle. The colors are surreal to me, just like the whole experience.

This was the second of a series of approx. 40 small-scale gouaches that I started early this year. I started painting again, after almost 2 years off. (I was working on the etchings primarily) I was dealing with all the craziness and uncertainty of my husband’s illness and started working on these intimate pieces of paper in my kitchen by the window overlooking my backyard. It was winter, and everything outside was dead and covered in snow. I started with lines, interwoven and was drawn into the small inner shapes.

The paper is red, so all the dull red is really the negative space I left of the paper showing. I created a web of spheres and then was wrapped up in painting the small shapes in between. It put me into a trance like state just painting and filling, not actively thinking of composition or structure. It was almost like an exercise. But breaking away from it and then returning, it inspired me to go on and create the rest of the series of 40.  All the thoughts, images and inspirations for the others, came from the meditative state of creating this one.

This started in 2004; I was starting to work with soft ground etching and had created plates of torsos of me, my husband and son. After I was inspired to do a full body print, but really had no access or space to create it all on one plate, or one piece of paper. (I still would like to!) So, I cut up 11 plates and sectioned my self off, it ended up being very much like a crucifix, or Leonardo’s Man in a Circle drawing. Its funny, I had done a similar piece in college with scratchboard and burlap, and hadn’t realized until I assembled this one.  I first did it in a skin tone on buff paper, and then did this dark black/blue one on white paper.

Kiki Smith’s print show at MoMA and her face prints inspired me to wipe my face from side to side and get all the hair texture. I would like to take all the pieces and sew them together next into one large piece, and paint over it almost like a topographical map of life experience.

How do you see your future as an artist?

I can see myself continuing to teach, I love it. It keeps things new and fresh. I want to continue trying new media, such as the printmaking, and do more sculptural things with latex and resins. I have a lot of ideas, that I haven’t realized yet because I don’t know how to use the materials yet.

What inspired you to become a teacher?

My first year student teaching in NYC was to a group of 2nd graders. It was so inspiring to be giving the kids their first art experiences. I remember showing them a resist technique with crayons and watercolors, and their faces lit up! They thought it was like magic.

How does it affect you?

I love teaching – especially the high school level. The students are changing and maturing, and all that teenage angst gets into the work. I am very lucky to work in a school where the students have art everyday for 45 minutes. We have a great arts building, set up like a real art studio. The students get to really pour their passion into their work.

What do you get from your students?

I love seeing them learn new media and explore what they can do with it. I feed of their excitement and originality. I love seeing all the work from many different voices.

You are also a curator. Where do you curate? How did you become a curator? What are the responsibilities? How do you select your artists?

I started curating in 1989 at the Pelham Art Center, a local gallery. It started as a young artists show that grew annually into finally becoming a juried national exhibit of emerging artists in 1998.

I now curate at studio 12n on West 36th street in NYC. My cousin runs Resolution Digital, a commercial photo retouch studio. They have great space and good walls, so we started having exhibits of emerging artists in 2003. They have been very successful, and of course the location is great. I selected the artists through slides/cds. People have been coming to see the space, love it, and pass the word along to other artists.

Why have you used the term “Guerilla” when describing the art space and shows?

I feel that the space is originally intended to be a digital retouch studio. It has great wall space, so we took advantage of that to have exhibitions. For the receptions we move most of the equipment off the main floor, cover the light table to make it a bar, and put on the track lights – it looks like a real gallery space. After the reception it goes back to being a workspace – still open for the art to be viewed – but now the work hangs among a workspace. So it is a guerilla space to me because it is not permanent.

As a curator, what kinds of artwork to you respond to? What turns you off?

I respond to work that I feel is “real”. I like feeling that it was created from the artist’s soul. I am turned off by work that has no “voice”.

What is your view of contemporary art? What is most vibrant/stimulating work you are seeing?

Of course I love contemporary art – I love the work of Shazia Sikander, Wangechi Mutu, Kiki Smith

What do you see as current art trends? What trends do you think are coming in the immediate future?

Current art trends I see are the popularity of prints and photography. Also many artists are working in multiples, or many pieced works. I am doing the same, having many pieces seen as one.

What do you want to achieve as an artist? Fame? Fortune? Influence? Respect? Etc.

Respect, I want to create work from the soul that people can respond to. Fame would be fun, to have an exhibit in a NYC gallery would be amazing.