Kathleen Cope-Ruoss

Artist Biography

Since 1980, Kathleen Cope Ruoss has enjoyed creating fine art, prints and posters from her studio in rural Schwenksville, Montgomery County, PA. This self-taught artist has spent years honing her skills in watercolors. Many of the techniques used by the artist have been learned simply through imitation, trial, and error. This learning process instilled in her a commitment to quality and excellence. Kathy believes that natural talent is something you have, it can not be learned. But what must be learned is the perseverance and dedication an artist needs to translate that talent into a work of art.

Kathleen grew up in a close knit family with 4 sisters and 3 brothers in a stone farmhouse in rural Pennsylvania. Her emotionally charged art, prints and postesr are inspired by her childhood memories and her love of family. "With the 8 children working side by side with our parents in the fields and orchards every summer, we became very close. This is what I see still occurring in the Amish community and I feel that connection to them, I understand that family bond being created. That sense of family, working and playing together as a unit, one depending on the other, brings me back to my childhood.”

She still lives within four miles of that beloved farmhouse which she calls "The Farm”. It is the basis for her painting entitled "Washday at the Farm”. A stone farmhouse where Kathleen grew up, it is the place that she always refers to as "home”. Kathleen takes great pleasure in working with the effects of light and cast shadows in her art, prints and posters. These are the key elements that bring a painting to life. "Light, used correctly in a painting, is the most important tool you have to create an impact on the viewer. Create an impact that stirs the emotions and you have created a work of art that people will remember, in some small way it has touched them.” Her painting entitled "Museum Pieces” was commissioned by the Chester County Historical Society of West Chester, PA. All the pieces shown in the painting are directly from their collection.

Kathleen Cope-Ruoss Art, Prints and Posters Collection