Ruth Laskey is interested in the relatively unexplored territory that weaving occupies within the context of art history. Although trained in painting and drawing, she eventually shifted her practice in favor of a more primary relationship with her materials, abandoning paint and premade canvas in order to work the abstract form directly into her weaving process.
Laskey makes her small linen textiles with a traditional floor loom. The geometric structures that make up her art are based on the weaving loom’s own internal logic. Laskey achieves gradients in the color of her shapes by carefully pre-planning and dyeing the threads with varying degrees of intensity. She predetermines the twill pattern for each work, making precise mathematical calculations and executing preparatory drawings on graph paper. Often using a restricted palette and simple geometric forms—diamonds, triangles, squares, polygons—to integrate a figure/ground dialogue into her process, she sets these shapes against and within white ground. The etchings with Paulson Bott Press are Ruth Laskey’s first prints since she became an artist and the change in size, materials, and process represents a departure for her. She uses the opportunity of these etchings to experiment with pattern and repetition. Laskey holds a BA in art history from UC Santa Cruz; she earned her BFA and MFA from California College of the Arts. She is represented by Ratio 3 in San Francisco.
