Essay: The Life and Work of Ed Ruscha

Ed Ruscha was born in Omaha Nebraska on December 16, 1937. He was born to his Father, Edward Ruscha, and his mother Dorothy Ruscha. His family also included two siblings. One was a brother, named Paul, and the other, a sister, named Shelby. His family was of the Roman Catholic religion, and his father was especially right and strict. His mother held more of an interest in the arts, and introduced this to Ed and his sister.
Ed’s father carried the occupation of an auditor for an insurance company, which eventually led him to move his family to Oklahoma City. They remained there for the following 15 years. While in Oklahoma City, Ruscha began to find himself interested in drawing cartoons, due to a neighbor of his who was a cartoonist. Eventually, it was time for Ruscha to move off to college. He applied to the Chouinard Art Institute in California. He later continued his studies at the California Institute of the Arts. During his time at school, Ruscha worked at Plantin Press for about 6 months. He worked in the commercial art industry for a while, mainly doing advertising, although he also did layout for a couple of different companies.
Ed Ruscha was associated as working in the Pop Art movement. This makes clear sense, because a lot of his inspiration came from pop culture in Los Angelos, as well as the scenery from the area in general. Through his work he contributed to influencing a new generation of artistic talent, which lead to the Neo-Pop movement. Ed Ruscha worked with many types of art including lithographs, etching, aquatint, and screen print, where he experimented with different types of organic dyes, rather than just using the ink from a printer.
Ed Ruscha created works that portrayed different meaning depending on the way the viewer chose to look at it. One example of this is his screen print called Standard Station. Across the top of the gas station in the print, it reads “STANDARD”. Standard Oil is the obvious direction that your mind would go if you knew about Standard Oil, however, he left out the word oil, leaving it open ended for the viewers to add meaning to the work. Ed Ruscha’s work did not go without response. Other artist across the world have responded to his works. An example of this would be Bruce Nauman. Bruce Nauman is an American artist, who deals in medias such as sculpture, photograph, drawing, neon, printmaking, and performance. Bruce Nauman’s work, which was titled, Burning Small Fires (1968), was a collection of pictures of himself burning Ed Ruscha’s book, Various Small Fires and Milk (1964). This was Nauman’s display of protest to Ruscha’s work. Ruscha challenged the ideas of western art and created something different.
The Pop Art movement as a whole, targeted shifting the view people had on the difference of “high” art and “low culture”. (theartstory.com. Pop Art). Pop art also carried with it abstract expressionism, and a whole new take on what is even considered art. It tried to break down the hierarchy of culture. It is evident through Ruscha’s work, that he shared similar interests towards shifting societal norms and views.
My opinion of Ed Ruscha’s work is two-sided. I find it hard to see from his artwork any spiritual association to what he has created. From my perspective, I cannot see how his work is glorifying to God, nor what the value the words in a lot of his work are adding. The meanings seem ambiguous, and some even seem cheesy and easily done. But, I do find works of his such as Standard Station, and Large Trademark with Eight Spotlights, to be attractive to the eye, and they draw my attention uniquely. I do like the style of his art, however, I do not know if I can confidently grasp his meanings. Overall, I believe he is a good artist, who has a lot of talent, and a creative eye. Regardless of the meanings, I find the perspective he takes on the world, that he shows through his art, to be intriguing.