Ruenell was born in San Francisco in 1940. Most of her pre-college years were lived in what was then the very small town of Twentynine Palms, near the entrance to Joshua Tree National Monument. She spent a lot time hiking in the Monument and surrounding high desert. The impression that the vastness of these surroundings made on her is reflected her landscape paintings.
Ruenell left Twentynine Palms to attend U.C. Davis. There she was privileged to study with Ronald Peterson and Wayne Thiebaud. She left Davis to marry and move to the Bay Area in the middle of her junior year, but continued taking art classes at community colleges until she was able to get back to college full-time. During that period, she was introduced to clay at the College of Marin.
Ruenell completed her bachelors in painting at San Francisco Art Institute, and went on to get an M.F.A in ceramics at U.C. Berkeley. Then, she returned to College of Marin to teach drawing, materials and techniques and ceramics and conducted ceramics workshops at colleges and universities throughout California, at Anderson Ranch in Colorado, and for nearly two months in Eastern Australia.
She was best known for her ceramics, which can be found in top museum collections throughout the United States. These are listed on her website, Ruenellfoytemps.com. The eBook version of, “All I Have – Celebrating Ceramic Artist Ruenell Foy Temps,” where more biographical information can be found, is also available on that website.
As Ruenell’s ceramic work evolved from making utilitarian things for sale to non-traditional and pure art pieces that are now collected by museums, her income from clay declined as the cost of doing it increased. She closed this gap utilizing her talent and education in painting in her unique medium and style that is exhibited on this website.
Ruenell did most of her paintings using oil pastels that she blended herself and applied on very heavy paper. They sold to private and corporate collectors through San Francisco Bay Area galleries and the rental gallery at the original San Francisco Museum of Modern Art at Fort Mason. Where Ruenell put a lot of attention into detail with her ceramic work, her paintings were much freer. They were meant to evoke a sense of space and wellbeing and not to be substitutes for photographs. Many were inspired by her memories and impressions from the times she lived in the high desert and in western Marin County in northern California.
This website is a catalog of two-dimensional works that Ruenell left behind when she passed away in 2000. It was her wish that the artwork she created should benefit others with no profit for herself or her estate. Lakewood Ranch Hospital in Florida accepted a number of her skyscapes to brighten patient rooms and a few more went to the hospital foundation’s auction to raise money for nursing scholarships. The works on this website are available for the asking to those who may have a place or clients with a place for them that fulfills Ruenell’s wish. Send an email or call if interested.
