Ruth is lucky enough to live in Sydney, Australia surrounded by beaches and country. She likes to live a life in many dimensions – writer, horsewoman, wife, artist, mother, friend, skier, farmer, reader, community spokeswoman, public speaker, to name a few. The important thing is not to be defined within one cast of characters or setting in real life as there is always more to learn and enjoy outside the circle you feel comfortable in. The other thing is to never think you can categorise people by their dress, way of speaking or opinions as everyone is fluid and reactive. 

Ruth has spent much of her adult life writing about the legal regulation of work especially safety and health in that environment. Incinerate is her first work of fiction drawn from the strange ways of this modern first world. 

The artist is expressed through the medium of encaustic art and sees the environment expressing itself to us, humankind, as jewels of earth, sea and sky. Nature is simple and clear yet intricate and complex.  Our species, the human, is nurtured by the warmth and beauty of nature yet alarmed by its unpredictability and refusal to be controlled. We are caught up in appreciation of the huge powers unleashed in the natural world but desperate to control and leash these powers in the bid for our own survival. These are the contradictions that fascinate and motivate her to paint. 

The need to control and categorise ourselves, each other and our natural world are the links between Ruth’s writing of fiction and her art.