Featured Member Artist: Ruth Schanbacher

My main goal, whether I'm working on production or community building, is to breath life into concepts and ideas...


Production and Performance:

I'm very drawn to fantasy costuming and sets, and to finding appropriate locations and getting people involved. The events I produce have a strong participatory community component. So much so, that frequently there is no "audience," because everyone is involved at some point. Aesthetically, I see costuming as an extension of my love of soft sculpture and art dolls.

I'm a member of Horsey, a sound art/ performance project...the audio component lies somewhere in the crossover of music and noise...we sometimes perform live...we have a ton of recorded material...though only a small portion of this has been released at this time.

Artist Promotion:

In 2007, I founded Manufactured Dissent, and since then I've been interviewing artists / writers / performers for this site.

Community Coordination:

This is probably the most visible thing I'm involved with. Since 2007 I've been involved w/ a group of artists. They started out as the Philly Etsy Team. At some point we decided to start our own, independent art collective, which has since morphed into Handmade Philly. I strive to motivate people to make things...and to build strong local economies and communities.

Visual & Collaborative Art

Most of my 2D work focuses on spatial relationships of both real and imagined landscapes: map illustration on a macro and micro level. I enjoy working with a variety of materials and, of course, love working on collaborative projects. I enjoy making objects with a strong individual character. I like objects that look personal...like a person made them...I would categorize my style as contemporary primitive folk art. Though it can be dangerous and potentially limiting to throw such labels around.

This year I joined the Women's Caucus for Art. Through this organization, not only have I met super talented and charming artists, I was also given the opportunity to meet a few really sweet students from a local high school. We worked together on one of the collaborative projects, and I was really grateful for the opportunity. I've really been wanting to get more involved with community outreach...you know it's so easy as an adult to live a self contained (ie isolated) life...and I feel it's really important to reach past the circle of friends/ family / co-workers and into the community at large...

Ruth Schanbacher
Community Coordinator
www.handmadephilly.com
www.mandismag.com
www.volklibre.org
http://horsey75.tumblr.com

To find out more, check the Upcoming Exhibits and Performances page at www.ruthschanbacher.com