Ford Ruthling

ART & SOUL

Honored October, 2003

Ford Ruthling

Where to begin with Ford Ruthling? Probably at birth, for he is a New Mexico native as well as a Santa Fe original. His mother, Helene Maurer Ruthling, came to Santa Fe in 1916, as governess to the grandchildren of Mabel Dodge Luhan, the legendary arts patroness in Taos. He grew up on a farm in Tesuque, when it was just a rural village.

Now Ford Ruthling is a nationally and internationally known artist, a fervent preserver of traditional art (even as he takes that art to new evolutions), and a local legend in his own time, in his own right—as much for his world-class bonhomie as his art. Somehow he has held onto a three-acre enclave in the South Capitol neighborhood, just blocks from the Santa Fe Plaza, and has made his place a magical, other-worldly little world, long to be remembered by many of the thousands of people who have partied there.