In 1990 Ruthellen Pollan left Boca Raton Florida with the clothes on her back and the getaway car. Her marriage, home life, and shared family history were all in the rear view. Her roadmap? Due west and horizons unbound. On the cusp of turning fifty, Ruthellen Pollan pulled into the “my lane.” She had no specific plan. She didn’t know where she would land. Or how.
The tale of the flat tire is the stuff of high legend. Who knew tires could sense the convergence of journey into destination? Think about it. You’d be driving straight through the town you would come to call your new and final home. All due to that timely and unexpected blowout!
The other thing she unpacked in the Utah Desert was an approach to life expressed in the eloquence of her pen and inks, pastels, and oils. The majesty of her new home inspired a phoenix of an art program that lives to this day and supports the creative tradition of Navajo heritage.
Ruthellen’s story carries both the journey and destination of an artist who stayed true to her vision. A painter whose celebration of the natural beauty that surrounded her also embraced the Native American homeland as her own frontier. The impact of her teaching is still felt deeply by her former colleagues and students. These pages burnish those cherished memories.
1996: Breaking ground an the future site of 2333 Juniper Drive.
Campfire in a Time Capsule
Here is a reprint of the eloquence that Lou Mueller shared with us at the memorial service. You can watch her reading of this revealing and tender tribute, along with the stories told by family, friends, and colleagues here.
You came one summer.
– Lou Mueller
With your irrepressible ideas and your ingenious designs and your inventive plans and your endless vision. And your excitement.
And many could not understand. But for me, you rescued the beauty that I had begun taking for granted. My eyes saw it all anew through your eyes.
And somehow you adored me and never let me forget my value and worth to you. Calling me like you did whenever I disappeared for too long, I took myself too seriously, which I do a lot. And when I came with my apologies for the war within your body, and found you nurturing seedlings on the hill behind your home, you make no acceptance speech but chided my fears, banning them, refusing to tolerate sympathy or negativity.
“This may sound crazy,” you said, standing at the crest of a new day’s vista, but I’m going to embrace this and see what it has to teach me. And that is what you did.
Our last real conversation. You called me. Oh, my shame for neglecting you. You offered creative solutions. For my latest dilemma I am amazed, awestruck and the shame. In your final weeks you are thinking of me and I am thinking of Tribune. That doesn’t even really matter.
You left one summer and your irreplaceable ideas.
And your genius defined.
And your inventions on canvas.
And your vision unobstructed.
And your acceptance that many cannot understand.
For me, you rescued the life that I had begun taking for granted. My eyes see it all anew.
Through you.
