In addition to Ruthellen’s talents as a oil painter and an art professor, she had a gift for seeing her blind-spots. Knowing her challenges. Those aptitudes she lacked personally but sorely needed for her visions to be realized.
Fortunately for both her and Blanding, there were many colleagues and friends who bridged this gap. Dean Bob McPherson and Heather Young were two of many examples where the administrative, program management, and accounting side of Ruthellen’s grand designs stepped in to support the more practical side of implementing the goals and visions of the College of Eastern Utah San Juan Campus art program.
And just because the operational details lacked the opulence and magnetism of her quest, the truth is that the art program would have never launched without these disciplined and capable pragmatists. Collaboration was critical to the enterprise. Ruthellen was a dreamer and a doer. But her achievements would have never reached institutional scale without the responsive voice of her more grounded colleagues.
These same community ties formed the foundation of the support network that bore the weight of Ruthellen’s illness. Every night a different neighbor or colleague would provide meals for Ruthellen and her family. Through the metastasis of the breast cancer, the chemo treatments, and an untimely car accident, the community came together.
Every day would find her surrounded in a prayer circle by legions of loving friends. The community pulled together in this difficult time. Even after she lost the gift of speech, Ruthellen beamed with gratitude for the protective and enduring embrace of her Blanding, Bluff, and beyond friends that beat a path to her welcoming door.
Here are some excerpted correspondences from friends, family, colleagues, and community members on the first anniversary of her passing.
A Few Admirers Weigh In
Sent: Wednesday, June 23, 2004 8:28 PM I have no words to describe the deep love and friendship-sisterhood I shared with your mother. Her laughter, her spiritual beauty, her immeasurable talent and expression of nature in canvas. She was the canvas, the brush, the paint, the painter. I will always keep my beloved memories for dear Ruthellen. We shared precious time together, the two of us, with friends and the community.
– Carmen Boutet 
July 22, 2005 12:56 PM I painted my gate turquoise. It reminds me of that turquoise sweater I knit her that she wore a lot, and Heather now has.
– Kathleen Murphy
Sent: Monday, July 11, 2005 3:29 PM Has it really been a year? Ruthellen is never far from me; she goes everywhere with me. I have been in northern Utah working on my PhD (which she had a hand in of course). When I get discouraged I can just imagine her “get to it” attitude.
We are doing some exciting things here on campus with an emphasis on art and humanities. So much of what is happening are indeed seeds she sowed. What a bountiful harvest we will reap. I miss her.
– Heather Young
Sent: Monday, July 04, 2005 9:29 PM She was – and is – indeed a Light Spirit who has illuminated the path for all of us. I will always be grateful to have had her in my life.
– Doris Ackerman
Sent: Tuesday, June 28, 2005 11:04 PM Thanks for the wonderful letter. It created a space in which I could think about your mother for a long time today, to reflect on legacy, and it is everything you say, and more.
– Michael Pollan
Sent: Tuesday, June 28, 2005 1:36 PM [G]ood to use her life as an inspiring example to focus on our own growth, which ever way we choose.
– Carmen Luzmila
Sent: Monday, June 27, 2005 9:58 PM The creative gene that started with your Granddad, then successfully passed through Ruthellen. In Mom’s photo, she looks as well as she did when Bob and I last saw her; the day after she returned from her cruise with Priscilla. She still had that smile that lit up the world. I’m so grateful to remember her that way.
– Jackie Smith
Sent: Monday, May 02, 2005 12:49 PM I just shed a few tears reading and looking at pictures, especially the one with Bob sitting in front of Ruthellen’s painting when she was too sick to be there. Sophie is sitting on the back of my chair as I write this.
She just let out one of her inimitable meows to remind me that she is here. The “she who is here” today is Ruthellen. We will be heading to Blanding soon. I know that I am the part of Ruthellen who is still stunned by the beauty of the place.
Ring, Ring, “Jill, are you watching the sunset tonight? Isn’t it amazing to be living in such a place?” Yes, it is.
– Jill Penk