Ginny Ruffner

Who is Ginny Ruffner?

Ginny Ruffner is a glass artist in Seattle, Washington. She primarily uses the technique of lampworking. As of 2012, she has had 40 solo shows, several hundred group shows, and her work is in 42 permanent collections in museums around the world.

In 1991, Ruffner was involved in a three-car collision that almost took her life. She was in a coma for five weeks. Doctors thought she would never walk or talk again. The artist was in the hospital for five months and in a wheelchair for five years. The accident has left her with speech and walking problems.

She was profiled on the NPR show Weekend America on March 18, 2006. From 2012 her books and documentation were added to the permanent collection of Giorgio Cini Foundation's Centro Studi del Vetro in Venice, Italy. There is a glass art work by Ruffner in the Lowe Art Museum in Coral Gables, Florida.