Today we’d like to introduce you to Ashlee Rudert.
Hi Ashlee, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I am a native of Salt Lake City, but I spent most of my adult life away from Utah. I have a strong belief in pursuing experiences outside of ourselves, especially if these things draw us away from the perceptions and biases we inherit growing up. I left to study fashion design because I have had a lifelong fascination with the way people choose to look. Growing up in Salt Lake City, I always had questions about the social codes and physical identities within the predominant culture in comparison to other subcultures in Utah. This interest left me with a strong point of view and a desire to study how different material objects are used to convey status and identity. Leaving Utah allowed me to reach goals I never would have attained in the same way if I had stayed. I returned to Utah when I began to recognize that my goals and creative needs changed over time and would find greater opportunity if I came back to where I started from. It was a full circle journey.
Fashion is a complex output of so many forces in science, engineering, economics, sociology, environment, pop-culture and art, but as a commercial endeavor, it can be quite limiting. Over time, the demands of working with global supply chains and production calendars divorced me from the things that really drove me and gave me purpose. I had a desire to surround myself with creative expression rooted in individual craftwork. Being able to have space, time, and community around me to build a creative life was the goal in returning to Salt Lake City. Some people may find this ironic that I left a much larger pool of resources, but I discovered quickly that my creative voice grew proportionately to the diminishing quantity of distractions in my life.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
When you walk away from something you have established to start over again, the reactions are often split into two different groups: some people will think you’re absolutely reckless, and others will admire your assertion of free will, regardless of whether they understand you. The only thing that has ever really mattered to me is whether I can trust my own choices in the face of changes and repeated challenges. I have had many changes happen to me, regardless of the choices I wanted to follow; many times, my occupations, my sense of home, my health, and my relationships shifted beyond my control. At the end of the day, nothing is more reassuring to me than the choices I have made for myself, even when there is adverse pressure to act on them.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am a visual artist focused on classical figure drawing, fashion illustration and textile arts. I study people and the ways they adorn their bodies and their environment. I use these observations to record what I see in charcoal, watercolor, and pen & ink. I can be found live illustrating wherever fashionable people congregate.
I am also most proud of my involvement with the Salt Lake Drawing Club, which I facilitate and co-host along with Kent Miller and Trevor Dahl, two other Utah based artists. SLDC is held weekly at Clubhouse, an historic event venue located on South Temple. Supporting a venue that attracts artists of all levels and backgrounds is extremely gratifying. We practice live figure drawing, and as an artist there is a duality I enjoy in drawing people: there is a high level of complexity in the human body, but drawing is the most accessible art form: any drawing instrument, any type of paper, and one’s own ability to focus your attention are the only things needed to create a work of art. It takes a remarkable amount of concentration on a subliminal level, and when we have a room filled with dozens of artists all focusing their collective attention, the stillness and quiet becomes meditative, and almost spiritual in nature. This might sound a little far out, but it’s something our attendees and models often describe from their experiences.
Let’s talk about our city – what do you love? What do you not love?
I often describe my time in Salt Lake City in terms of my 1.0 life from before I left, and the 2.0 life I’ve lived since I returned. I have many moments where I am trying to recognize something from my 1.0 life among all the redevelopment that’s obliterated much of the city I knew before. Nostalgia is a tricky thing to get caught up in, yet there is a lot in the Salt Lake valley to be nostalgic about. There is also a fascinating dichotomy to the indelible presence of the Wasatch Mountain range cradling the constantly changing downtown skyline. There are parts of my 1.0 city and my 2.0 city that are both worth experiencing. I want us to grasp the importance of what we keep and what we give up in the course of change. There is beauty in collective memory, but we are also living in a time when we are so incredibly divided in our collective choices. I feel most at home in this city when I am surrounded by a community of people who are good stewards of both the past and the future.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.ClubhouseSLC.com
- Instagram: @ashlee_crashlee
- Other: @SaltLakeDrawingClub
