by Julie Ressler, Pres­i­dent, Wil­mette Arts Guild

by Julie Ressler, Pres. Wil­mette Arts Guild

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The Wil­mette Arts Guild was so hon­ored to have Ruth Weis­berg here in Wil­mette with us. Many heart­felt thanks to Pre­mier Bank for allow­ing us to have this won­der­ful event in this beau­ti­ful space. Dr. Zul­fiqar and Shamim Esmail and Angel­i­ca Demetropolis’s unstint­ing and enthu­si­as­tic sup­port through­out the year gives feet and wings to the expan­sion of the Wil­mette Arts Guild into becom­ing a nation­al­ly rec­og­nized arts orga­ni­za­tion. The Wil­mette Arts Guild’s phi­los­o­phy is INCLUSIVE. This is also the phi­los­o­phy of Pre­mier Bank with whom we love to work.
This after­noon we will meet Chicago’s own Ruth Weis­berg, Dean of the Ros­ki School of Fine Arts at USC in Los Ange­les. She is also a world renowned fine artist. (65 major muse­ums have her in their per­ma­nent col­lec­tions) This is a VERY rare com­bi­na­tion!
What I find so thrilling about Ruth’s art is that rather than negat­ing the con­tin­u­um of human his­to­ry, she stud­ies it, digests it and uses it to make her superb paint­ings have yet anoth­er dimen­sion. Her works keep man in the bosom of his fam­i­ly rather than thrown into the nihilis­tic void pre­ferred by so many in the con­tem­po­rary art scene today.
The under­ly­ing engine of her paint­ings is pas­sion. Her women are full and glo­ri­ous, no shred­ded psy­ches and ema­ci­at­ed bod­ies in these paint­ings! Men and women con­nect in her world. Rather than min­i­mize or triv­i­al­ize feel­ing, she rel­ish­es this most human of qual­i­ties. It gives her work inter­nal valid­i­ty for all who see it.