Artist

Ginny Ruffner

born Atlanta, GA 1952-died Seattle, WA 2025
Media - portrait_image_114974.jpg - 137452
Courtesy of Ginny Ruffner. Photo by Doug Tucker.
Also known as
  • Ginny Martin Ruffner
Born
Atlanta, Georgia, United States
Died
Seattle, Washington, United States
Biography

Seattle-based artist Ginny Ruffner trained at the University of Georgia, graduating with honors and an MFA in drawing and painting. Ruffner has had more than eighty-five solo exhibitions and several hundred group shows, and her flameworked and mixed-media sculptures and installations can be found in numerous national and international collections. Seattle public art installations include a 30-foot-tall kinetic water feature downtown and a permanent installation in the Seattle Art Museum's Olympic Sculpture Park. Recent augmented reality projects, in collaboration with Grant Kirkpatrick, include "Weston Riff" at Photo Center NW; "Branches" at Seattle International Film Festival; and "Poetic Hybrids" at the Seattle Art Museum. She has written two books and been the subject of an award-winning full-length documentary, "A Not So Still Life: The Ginny Ruffner Story" (2010). Ruffner has lectured and taught extensively and has served as artist-in-residence at schools and universities around the world.

"Ginny Ruffner: Reforestation of the Imagination," 2019

Works by this artist (2 items)

Ginny Ruffner, Inventing the Music of Beauty, 1991, glass, oil paint, colored pencil, and ink, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Ann and Thomas Cousins, the James Renwick Alliance, and museum purchase through the Smithsonian Institution Collections Acquisition Program, 1992.81
Inventing the Music of Beauty
Artist
Date1991
glass, oil paint, colored pencil, and ink
On view
Ginny Ruffner, A Girl's Guide to Fashion Evolution, 1987, glass and acrylic paint, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Carol and Don Wiiken, 1999.57.17
A Girl’s Guide to Fashion Evolution
Artist
Date1987
glass and acrylic paint
On view

Videos

Exhibitions

This is an image of a flower coming out of a tree trunk
Ginny Ruffner: Reforestation of the Imagination
June 28, 2019–January 5, 2020
Renwick Gallery
Ginny Ruffner (1952-2025) is a glass artist best known for her elegant sculptures and mastery of glass techniques.

Related Books

A copy of the book cover for Ginny Ruffner with an image of a wood stump.
Ginny Ruffner: Reforestation of the Imagination
Reforestation of the Imagination invites us into a futuristic landscape of peril and promise. Combining handblown glass sculptures with augmented reality (AR), artist Ginny Ruffner blends art and technology, curiosity and wonder, and takes us on a journey of “what ifs”: What if the landscape is devastated? What can nature do to heal itself? What roles do creativity and science play in our ability to confront an altered landscape?