top of page
Search

Building 30 West's Featured Artist of the month is Ellen Rutledge! Read for an interview with Rutledge about her art process and career.


Seattle artist Ellen Rutledge creates rich works on paper using the venerable techniques of metal plate etching and hand-printing. Each image is carefully layered with foundpapers, collage elements and hand-coloring that enrich the printing process. Rutledge’s work evokes the domestic sphere of home and hearth.



How would you define your distinctive artistic style and the elements that characterize it?

My visual vocabulary is a hodge podge of worn, used and common objects. They are a constant and ongoing fascination for me and I like puzzling their implications to human activities and thought as well as their metaphorical references. In addition to cakes and purses and birds and gloves, I like to use text from old books, not only for the ongoing stories in life but for the beauty of lines and letters and old pages.


Can you describe the routine or creative flow that guides your artistic process?

The intaglio print process has been meaningful in this process. It allows me the freedom to repeat, layer, sculpt and juxtapose color, line and shape. By imbedding text, maps and my own drawings into the work through the old technique of chine colle, I add reference to daily life and its complexity. The production of my pictures involves multiple print techniques including dry point, photo etch, soft ground etching, mezzotint and chine colle and collage.


How has your artistic process and style evolved over the course of your career?

I came to my artistic practice by way of a fifteen year nursing career. When my daughter entered first grade I made the decision to pursue a BFA in art from Cornish College of the Arts. My intent was to focus on painting, but I fell in love with print! I am inspired by looking at many different kinds of art. I am motivated by the mundane items all around me. 


Where can audiences find more information about you and view your artwork?

My work can be viewed at www.ellenrutledge.com and Instagram (@ellen.rutledge).


 
 
 

Fong moved from Taiwan to Seattle in 1987, and graduated from the University of Washington Painting Program in 2000. She has been featured in several shows and has received various awards during her art career. In addition to her time spent painting, she has taught after school art programs and helped run community program workshops. Her pieces are mainly portraiture and figurative with an impressionistic emphasis. She finds the artistic rendition of people to be a satisfying complex challenge.


Aside from exploring and developing her paintings, she currently teaches lessons and host open studios at her workspace in Magnuson Park. View her artwork and visit her website here!



 
 
 


Understanding Oil, Fong Baatz’s Student Exhibition is on view from February 10 - March 1, 2024, in the Magnuson Park Gallery. This exhibition features students of all ages from Fong Baatz’s class, who have learned the foundations of oil painting through studies done from direct observation, such as still lifes.


These works vary in style and composition but are connected through the artists’ love of art and their shared mentor. Key elements that may be found across several pieces are techniques that Fong emphasizes, such as patchwork, subtle shifts in value and hue, and warm underpaintings left peeking through in the final results.


This show is produced by Chantelle Ma, Magnuson Park Gallery Intern. An oil painter and student of Fong Baatz, Chantelle has curated Understanding Oil to feature works made entirely by student artists of Fong Baatz.


Accompanying the artworks are flower arrangements provided by the Ikenobo Lake Washington Chapter.


Featured artists: Amy Xuan, Angelina Kam, Ariel Kam, Avery Mckay, Cecelia Wu, Celine Ao, Chantelle Ma, Chloe Pang, Christy Hao, Ellie Mu, Ethan Li, Gianna Zhan, Isabel Li, Jinhong (Anne) Wu, Jinze Lang, Madison Liu, Marina Hao, Stephanie Li, Thivia Mogan, and Varenna Ronald.


Join us for a Gallery Reception on February 17 from 1-4 PM.


Understanding Oil is on view February 10 - March 1 with special hours on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays from 12-3 PM, or by appointment. Visit The Magnuson Park Gallery in Building 30 West at Magnuson Park (7448 63rd Ave NE, Seattle WA 98125).



 
 
 

Sand Point Arts and Cultural Exchange acknowledge we are on the stolen and unceded ancestral land of the Duwamish, Suquamish, and Stillaguamish Tribes. We make this acknowledgment to remind ourselves that our work must strive to remedy this unjust colonization through our beliefs and actions.

bottom of page