Martha Paisley Ruth Awarded WWG Honorary Member

Martha Paisley Ruth is awarded Waterloo Watercolor Group’s 2023 Honorary Member Award for her years of volunteering for this central Texas art organization promoting education and appreciation of water mediums, as well as other contributions in the Austin, Texas area promoting fine arts in the community. Below is Martha’s acknowledgement of this honor:

Thank you for distinguishing me with Waterloo’s Honorary Member Award. It has been an enriching pleasure for me to serve in many capacities for WWG. Waterloo’s mission of education and the selfless volunteering by many members to make and keep Waterloo such a vibrant organization reminds me of the impact my parents, many of my teachers, neighbors, co-workers, and friends had in my life choices. I witnessed these people passionately share their time and expertise with me and others. They truly cared.

I began my professional career employed and eventually freelancing as a graphic designer/art director for 18 years. When my children were in elementary school I began offering after-school, evening and summer group drawing and painting classes for 15 years. I realize how this in-depth variety of experience gave me a great foundation for using my skills for volunteering and giving back to my community. One learns best by doing! Facilitating others’ appreciation of art and growth in drawing and painting has been my greatest joy.

When I joined WWG in 1996, I asked if there were extracurricular activities – and of course, got the job! For the first three years, monthly I arranged for and found locations to offer members a variety of free, one-day workshops from our volunteer members about painting techniques and figure drawing, lecturers, painting-on-location, parties, and discounted bus trips to art museums -- many of which took me out of my comfort zone but opened a whole new world of learning and growth for me. Of course, all this led to my creating monthly camera-ready pages for the newsletter to advertise these activities, chairing shows, creating painting labels, brochures, publications’ ads for our shows, obtaining awards from businesses, making our group’s new name tags, for several years creating the camera-ready prospectuses for our two annual shows, and years of serving on the Board in many capacities.

When I moved to the Apache Shores neighborhood in 2005, as a resident I was able to contract their community hall for meetings, demos, and workshops for Waterloo Watercolor Group, Austin Pastel Society, and the Waterloo-sponsored 1-day workshops for the children of CASA of Travis County. I also arranged for discounted frame and brush sales with vendors.

I organized fundraising and handled the hall’s new lighting, ceiling, paint, and repairs of the kitchen/ bathrooms. WWG was able to have free storage for their supplies at this hall for many years. This led to my helping and then VP/Co-chair for the bi-annual WWG workshops in the Hall through 2012. I’ve given demos, workshops, and presentations for WWG members.

In 2005 I arranged for the free use of the hall for painting activities. It began as free days to learn from those who took the WWG week-long workshops and grew to become the 620 Group, a weekly painting/ critique group in whatever mediums the individual artists wish. We even offered monthly figure drawing sessions for a time. I’ve kept the group “going” by creating my monthly News emails and membership directory. It’s been a dynamic group of 105 artists so far over the years, even with moving to new locations. To date, I’ve arranged for over 50 Home/Studio Tours by our members, paint-outs, parties, and museum trips. And the artists have had many art shows & sales in the various venues around Austin.

As most of you know, when one is involved with one arts group, it overlaps with others! Through the years I’ve volunteered in most of the jobs for Austin’s Capitol Art Society; juried art exhibitions; RRISD’s research/ instruction for presentations for Art in the Classroom, created backdrops for school musical presentations, invitations/PR for high school functions; in Tucson AZ I was elementary school PTA VP/Fundraising, school designs for apparel and a new library floorplan, check-out desk/bookshelves and painted 19 murals, newsletters/activities for a new mothers’ association and my neighborhoods, and assisted in activities for Southern Arizona Watercolor Guild, Tucson Advertising Club, and Binghamton NY’s Public Relations Society of the Southern Tier; and I created posters, banners, brochures for various churches. You can read more about my history, paintings, and awards on this website.