Earth Artist – Jennifer Rugge

ABOUT JENNIFER: My own box of crayons! I was thrilled when I received a box of crayons in first grade I could call my own. We had them at home, but I shared with my brothers and sisters. We had a box full of art supplies.  I enjoyed drawing, painting and exhibiting in student contests and art shows.

I grew up in San Diego, one of five children who roamed up and down the beaches of California and Mexico.  I had a modest life rich with travel and adventures uncommon to most children then.  We camped along vacant beaches in Baja, gathered our food from the sea, and washed and swam among the waves.   We kept company with the scorpions at night and the creatures of the tide pools by day.  Inspirations for creating were all around us.  To rest from our explorations we would often draw and paint about the things we discovered, observed or dreamed. 

Following my dad’s footsteps, I became an elementary school teacher and incorporated art into most every subject.  My thesis for grad school centered on using multi-modal approaches to include art as a way to engage children in different areas of study.  This investigative approach where children discover the elements and facts that resonate with them through reading, writing, math and drawing, proved to be a successful and rewarding endeavor.  

I have studied, exhibited, taught and sold my art all over the world from California to Virginia to Italy and Vienna, Austria.  I visited the sacred churches of Italy, the Jugenstil of Vienna and the villages of such artists as Monet, Klimt, and Hunderwasser.  I studied ancient Italian art techniques which included Fresco, Illuminated writing, and gold leaf applications.  The energy of art emerges from a deep yearning with-in to express awareness of the beauty already inherent in our surroundings.  Nature in life inspires and ignites my passion to share the value and worth of art through a variety of mediums.

About Jennifer’s Art: https://jenniferrugge.com/

Reclaiming Our Ancestral Roots

As a lifelong artist and with my deep interest in historical roots, my digging into the ancient past has led me on an intriguing journey to want to know more.  It began with the early Italian fresco painters and designers.  The preparations of minerals into paints, writing in the illuminated style, and gold leaf applications that were used to capture the customs, symbols, and stories of the times opened my sense of self to another dimension of spiritual perspectives in life.  The questions kept coming as well as the curiosity to search beyond the surfaces of painted figures in a landscape. 

This path has shown me alternative ways to understanding our original roots through my own ancestral DNA trail, the study of Cave Art and artifacts, and the early knowledge of language expressed in signs and pictographs.  These are the structures that influence my art along with the inspirations observed in Nature and the land.  It gives me a fuller awareness of respect to our environment and the effort to create a non-toxic studio and artworks.  To travel this road is “Reclaiming Our Ancestral Roots” in order to discover and/or uncover the origins beyond recent ancestry charts to those far before and during the cave painters.  Here we find common ground. 

Join Jennifer in her world!

“I create works that reflect Nature and the communities evolving from this awareness, using organic materials with mineral components on paper, wood, and large stone.  My work engages a presence of life straight from the land reflecting our ancestral roots. “