Ruth Singer works in textiles to create intriguing and detailed artworks and objects, as well as installations and project pieces. She is inspired by historical textiles, museum objects, personal heritage, memory and stories. Many of her techniques are developed from the study of historical textiles, based on her own research and first career in museums. Ruth established her textile practice in 2005 and has exhibited widely since then.

Staffordshire Museum Service commissioned Ruth in 2012 to create new work for Talking
Textiles, inspired by their building, an 18th century court room and holding cells. Ruth created a series of Criminal Quilts, small, tactile pieces made in response to Victorian photographs of women criminals with their hands on their chests. The use of quilts refers back to the domestic lives of these women and the lack of comfort they must have experience in prison. This collection was subsequently purchased by the museum service for permanent display in the court room. A second series has recently been exhibited at the Textile Art Center, New York.
Ruth's personal work includes the series Monumental Folly which explores love and the sense of place associated with a particular building, which won the Craftspace Prize at Unit Twelve Contemporary Craft Open 2012. Ruth has recently been commissioned by Leicester University School of Museum Studies to make a new piece for Museum Metamorphosis inspired by a piece from Leicester's museum collections. Ruth chose a Nigerian charm gown as her inspiration, having been fascinated by the idea of an artist's hand transforming a plain piece of cloth into something with spiritual power and deep significance. She created a modern charm gown using domestic textiles from her grandparents house combined with her grandfather's documents and objects.

Ruth Singer

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