"I make things as much as I collect them"
Writer, journalist, photographer and bricoleur.
Voyager, painter, storyteller and antiques and eccentricities collector.
Former classical ballet dancer, model, violin player, a compulsive reader, a compulsive writer and an artisan.
Just a woman...
Ruth Baza is a nomad. She has travelled around the world since she was a child, and have had the chance to live in different countries and cities: New York, Nairobi, London, Tokyo, Johannesbourgh, Jerusalem, San Juan, Washington, Los Angeles, Madrid...
She spent her childhood surrounded by Art and Artists. She always knew she was born to create. She had a powerful imagination and all kind of resources to express her feelings. Thanks to her early and timeless "heroes" : Anaïs Nin, Janis Joplin, Poe, Tintin, Apollinaire, Jim Morrison, Rohmer, Paul Auster, Munch, Fellini, Debussy, Emily Dickinson, Henry Miller, The Sex Pistols, Man Ray,Verlaine, The Police, Fassbinder, Boris Vian,Truffaut, Jack Kerouac, Lord Byron, Sade, Marguerite Duras, Milan Kundera, John S. Sargent,, Federioo G. Lorca, Allen Gingsbergh, Nietzsche, Kafka, Oscar Wilde, the Brönte´s, Paul Bowles, Ernest Hemingway, Camus, Colette, to name but a few, she got the necessary inspiration and strenght to build her own stories.
At 17, she won the First Prize of the National Young Writers Contest. That same year she moved to NY to study Journalism and Mass Media at NYU and to work as correspondent for a couple of spanish cinema magazines (Interfilms and Fotogramas). She was called to go to Kuwait when the First Gulf War began to cover up the news for The Guardian and El Mundo as a photographer and translator. Three months later, she came back to NY and left the university after the first semester, to contribute in Newsweek and Seventeen. Two years later, she was living between Madrid and New York, and her articles, pictures and essays appeared in Cosmopolitan, El Gran Musical and Cambio 16.
Since then, she spent the following 10 years as a freelance journalist travelling worldwide in search of interesting stories, doing interviews and taking pictures and portraits for the mentioned media and El Mundo, The Guardian, Cinemanía, Interviú, Le Figaro, Il Corriere della Sera, GQ, El Correo, among others.
Ruth had the privilege to meet and interview/portrait people like Anjelica Huston, Lech Walessa, Hundertwasser, Iggy Pop, JJ Cale, Slash, Yoko Ono, Lindsay Kemp, Julian Schnabel, James Elroy, Tinto Brass, Adam Ant, Roman Polanski, Bruce Willis, Isabella Rosellini, Kurt Cobain, Billy Idol, Pavarotti, Paul McCartney, Gerard Depardieu, Eric Clapton, Dennis Rodman, Peter Eisenman, Rem Koolhas, Peter Fonda, Alvaro Siza, Nick Nolte... Hundreds of lifes, hundreds of stories, hundreds of portraits, hundreds of pages, hundreds of thanks...
Ruth is the author of the following published books: La vida intermitente (Random House-Mondadori, 1999), IN2 Japan (Vasava Artworks, 1999), La Dolce Vita (HMR, 1999) and La primera vez: una producción de Elías Querejeta (Festival de Cine Español de Malaga, 2000). Poetry books Laponia (Manuscritos, 2000) and Piedra, papel y tijeras (RB, 2001). She has also contributed in several literary and collective artistic projects: Fanta, retrospective of the valenciano painter Antonio de Felipe, Un año de rock 1993 and 1994, After Hours (Random House-Mondadori, 1999), Apología de la marihuana by Cristobal Cobo (Valdemar, 2002), Una hoja de lechuga by Alina Fernández (Temas de Hoy, 2002).
La Vida Intermitente was adapted for the theatre by the prestigious portuguese company Praga Teatro. The company toured with the play along Portugal and some european cities like Frankfurt, Berlin, Montpellier, Nimês, Paris, etc, and in june 2nd of 2000 won the Prize Teatro Amador of Lisbon as the best play of the year.
These are some of Ruth´ Exhibitions and Artistic Projects: On the Road by Levi´s Vintage Clothing (Spring 2000), Lucky Strike Collective (Barcelona Circuit, 2000), Evophat (Vasava Artworks, 2002), Suicidal Tendencies -an exhibition of my installations made of antique razor blades and mural pictures in collaboration with the argentinian poet, Diego Oscar Radío (Galería Manolo Rojas, 2002), Into My Shoes (Galería Manolo Rojas, 2003) , Vanidad, the skin I lived (Egoiste, 2002), Memento Mori (Madrid, FEM 2007)
Ruth has worked and supported the following brands, be by modelling, or writing: Bally, Acupuncture, Sweater House, Zone, Julie Sohn,Marina Danko or Suarez Joyeros. Also seen and contributed with TV and Radio Programs.
Along the last 10 years she has devoted and specialized in Antique Costume and Textiles, Taxidermy, Museology, Funerary Rituals in the XIX century, and Interior design and Graphic Design.
At present, she lives in Madrid where she runs a multidisciplinary studio, Time For Tea Antiques & Eccentricities. She works as antiques hunter and consultor specialized in antique taxidermy, antique costume and textiles, for several fine antique dealers, auction houses and private customers. She lectures and participates in conferences on antique taxidermy, anthropomorphic taxidermy, XIX funerary customs and fashion history... and continue developing new ideas on graphic design, photography and ensamblages.
Ruth Baza collections of discarded objects and amazing experiences inspires her to celebrate the commonplace, the past, and visual...
Just a woman... Just, ruth.
