Ruth Tyszka

Artist statement

The expansiveness and waves of Michigan’s Great Lakes were imprinted on me as a child.  I reconnected to that passion for water and nature as an adult and today it drives my glass mosaic waves.  As an experienced paddle boarder and novice surfer, big water and big waves are alluring in their rhythm and power.  The push-pull between the beauty of a wave and the edge of fear inspires me: beautiful fear.  My waves are aspirational— they allow me to be inside the wave, learn the wave and take chances.  Glass shares important visual characteristics with water and I use multiple techniques to emphasize these in each wave. 

Over the past few years, I have also put together small group shows with other artists, and in 2020 I curated my first show at the Janice Charach gallery in Michigan.  These shows reinforce my belief that we are stronger together, as are the connections and dialogues that happen between artworks, artists and viewers when they are brought into a space together.  

Biography

Ruth Tyszka has been in the arts for most of her life. She was a professional musician for ten years before pursuing a law degree and has studied photography, stained glass, mosaic (in the United States and Italy) and design. It was while working as a lawyer that she was driven on the weekends and evenings to work with her hands and imagination to build and create.

Tyszka’s artwork has appeared in the highly competitive Mosaic Arts International juried exhibition and was awarded in the recent Ode to Mother Earth exhibition juried by the Wyland Foundation, the Hawaii Waves Exhibition by Artfarm.productions and the 2012 Michigan Fine Arts Competition. Her mosaic artwork appears in multiple publications including in and on the cover of Schiffer Publishing’s Mosaic Art Today, in Edible Bits And Pleasing Pieces cookbook, and in Guide To Mosaic Techniques. Tyszka is a graduate of the Musicians Institute (Guitar Institute of Technology), Oakland University, and Wayne State University Law School. She is the past Governance Chair on the Board of Trustees of the Society Of American Mosaic Artists. She has traveled all over the world to study ancient and modern mosaics and her own work has appeared in galleries and juried art shows in and around the United States and as far away as a mosaic floor in Botswana.

Contact Ruth here

Follow Ruth on Instagram @truthinart