Barbara Ruge
Currently based in Stuart, Florida, Barbara Catana Ruge is a mixed media artist working mostly in watercolor, gouache, and acrylic paints. She likes to add embellishments and relief textures. Barbara has been drawing and painting from early childhood under the guidance of her artistically talented father who was educated in Italy. Art and music filled the household and extended into school and community life. Barbara graduated in 1970 from Rowan University with a BA in Mathematics and an ART minor. She finds that math principles play a role in her art, too. She balanced her time between business, child-rearing and painting 2D artworks, interior decorating, fiber arts and furniture refinishing. She is known for creating festival posters, presentation boards and hand-made greeting cards.
From 2005 to 2008 she was proprietor of her own retail space within a design shop in Fort Lauderdale, where she sold her refinished vintage furniture.
Included among her professional work experiences, Barbara custom designed business forms as sales representative at National Cash Register Corp for use in their business machines. Later she also designed sales brochures which were inserted into Mastercard and Visa bank statements as Direct-mail Marketing Sales Manager at First Data Resources, a subsidiary of IBM.
Upon her move to Florida in 1983, Barbara earned a Certified Residential Property Appraiser designation, a profession she practiced for 25 years, while also holding a Florida Real Estate Broker’s license. Barbara has been incorporated as Ruge Inc. since 2003. In 2010, Barb created L’Amour Florida Realty as Broker-Owner to pursue full-time real estate sales.
As president of Ruge Inc., Barb has maintained an active community presence. Over the years, she has served on many association boards as member/director and in officer capacities. Barbara is presently Secretary of Palm City Art Associates, Palm City, FL.
Notably, in 2015-2016 Barb served on the Art and Culture Council of the city of Oakland Park, FL, where she oversaw the selection and implementation of the wall mural in the city’s Art Park and the art wraps for electrical boxes on public streets.
It was during the Covid pandemic crisis of 2020 while mentoring the artistic endeavors of her granddaughters, that woke up Barb’s own inherent art abilities and aspirations. Presently, Barbara is mostly retired from her 40-year real estate career and is emerging with earnest into the local Treasure Coast art communities.
Please refer to the CV of Barbara Catana Ruge for Barbara’s art resume for shows, exhibitions and awards.
