About the Artist

Ruth Campbell was born in 1936 in Winnipeg where she has lived all of her life. Her interest in art began at an early age, but it has been in her retirement years that she seriously began to pursue her love of sculpting.

 

Ruth is an Associate of the Royal Conservatory of Toronto as a Solo Performer in Piano (ARCT).  She also studied as a Registered Nurse at the Grace Hospital. (R.N.)  Ruth's education in sculpting includes courses at the University of Manitoba: courses in North Yorkshire with Peter Hibbard, a former assistant to Henry Moore: a summer program at the Glasgow School of Art and courses with Wayne Brueckner at the Symposium Visual Arts Centre in Winnipeg.

 

In 2004, Ruth was accepted as one of fifteen students  to study sculpture at the Florence Academy of Art in Italy. Subsequently she spent four wonderful summers at the Academy with Robert Bodem as instructor.

 

Process of Sculpting

Sculpting is a very creative, but also very labour intensive art form. Some of my sculptures take up to six months to complete.

 

First a model is selected, and together we agree on a pose which expresses what it is I hope to portray. I work with this model for three hours at a time over a period of several weeks/months. Once the clay sculpture is completed, a rubber mold is made of the piece. Then a 'mother' mold of plaster keeps the rubber in place. Once dried, the mold is opened, the clay removed and  and the new rubber/plaster mold becomes the vessel for clay, resin, plaster or bronze. If the sculpture is to be done in bronze, the mold is sent to a bronze foundry. A wax mold of the sculpture, then a ceramic casing are made, then the bronze is poured. Once the bronze work is completed a patina is applied and the sculpture is ready to be shipped back to me.

 

Exhibitions

University of Winnipeg Homecoming Exhibit 2009; Opening Exhibit at Birchwood Gallery, Winnipeg  2009; Work on

display at Birchwood Gallery on Taylor Avenue, Winnipeg, MB; Work on display at Wayne Arthur Gallery, Provencher Avenue, St. Boniface, MB.