Julie Ressler, President of the Wilmette Arts Guild

     The Wilmette Arts Guild is so honored to have Ruth Weisberg here with us this afternoon.  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.