Ruth Charlotte Kneass //
Oak Drop
Stair Step Mobile
Part of the inaugural exhibition of Chandler Gallery
01 March - 19 April 2025
Ruth Charlotte Kneass //
Oak Drop Stair Step
Mobile
Ruth Charlotte Kneass
Ruth Charlotte Kneass is a Bay Area artist whose practice has been centered in creating mobile sculptures. Incorporating a myriad of materials including rosewood, elm, oak, driftwood, marble, basalt, concrete, steel, aluminum, brass, paper, bamboo, and rope, Kneass’s floating mobiles seem to defy the laws of physics no matter their media. Each of her works reveal Kneass’ fascination with the heavenly bodies, nature’s sublime forms and classical geometric motifs.
Kneass grew up in a family of makers; her family built handmade wooden boats in San Francisco since the 1850s. Her childhood was filled with days spent with her boatbuilder father at the Kneass Boat Shop on the waterfront in the Dogpatch neighborhood.
After studying industrial design at SF State and silversmithing at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, Ruth returned to the Bay Area in 1986 to set up her graphic design, fashion, and accessories studio, Kneass Boat Works. A decade later, Ruth accepted a job designing and producing displays for Banana Republic’s worldwide fleet of stores, where she worked for more than twenty years.
Kneass’s mother created small-scale mobiles for years and eventually inspired Kneass to see how she might express herself through this form. Immaculately balanced, her works seem weightless, otherworldly and uninhibited collections of earthen ob-
jects. When undisturbed, their perceived stillness is electrifying, though they remain in almost constant, slight movement. Interactive and kinetic, they also invite viewers to stroll through and around the work, which may be animated by a gust of wind or a push of the hand, cantilevering out and gently in motion like light twinkling on the sea’s surface.
The immersive process of creating a mobile on a massive scale engages Kneass’ penchant for drawing, carving, composing, balancing, and rigging. In her ready embrace of new materials, Kneass has become comfortable wielding a hammer and chisel, chainsaw, and lathe. And, as befits someone with a boat-building background, she is adept at operating a sailing block and tackle to hoist individual pieces when fine-tuning the essential balance, as they can measure up to a majestic fourteen feet and are often too heavy to manipulate by hand.
Kneass learned to operate a lathe at Tripp Carpenter’s legendary Bolinas-based furniture studio Espenet, where she stoked her obsession with long tapered drop shapes for a series of elm and oak mobiles. Much like her greatest artistic influence, Akira Minagawa, Ruth sees opportunities for artistry everywhere she looks, from the wild coastal land of her beloved Bolinas, to the infinity of the universe — keeping her at once grounded and celestial, and open to everything the world has to offer.
left: the entrance of Espenet
right: the lathe in the Espenet studio
left: the artist and the lathe
right: the artists tools
the template at the lathe
left:
center & right: the paper maquette of Oak Drop Stair Step Mobile
left: the artist at the door of the Espenet woodshop
right: Oak Drop Stair Step Mobile & the Espenet woodshop
left: in the Espenet studio with Tripp Carpenter
weighing the mobile (center) , & the turned forms in the studio (right)
left: the artist at Agate Beach in Bolinas after a day of work
right: turned forms in the studio
left: Pierre Jeanneret & Ruth Charlotte Kneass exhibition poster
right: Oak Drop Stair Step Mobile
left: the artist & the mobile in New York City
turned form paper dolls (center), & design motifs that come from the drop shapes (right)
left & right: wallpapers with Oak Drop Stair Step Mobile design motifs
left: mock-up of Kneass’ mobile & Hanneke Lourens’ Corrugated Lounge Chair
center & right: Kneass & Lourens’ works installed at Chandler Gallery
Charlotte Kneass | Curriculum Vitae
American artist, born in 1962
Born and raised in the Bay Area
Education
The Marble Institute of Colorado 2007 – 2018
The Crucible – Oakland, CA 2005 & 2013
F.I.T. NYC 1988
San Francisco State University - Industrial Design 1986
Solo Exhibitions
2023 Golden, Elbereth, Kyoto, Japan
2022 Useful Things, Curators Cube, Tokyo, Japan
2022 Useful Things, The Jones Institute at Minnesota St Project, San Francisco, CA
2020 Other Colors, The Jones Institute, San Francisco, CA
2019 Out Here, Stardust, Kyoto, Japan
2018 Aloft Afloat, The Jones Institute, San Francisco, CA
2017 The White Show, Curators Cube, Tokyo, Japan
2017 Ruth Charlotte Kneass, Alumnae, NYC, NY
2017 GIANTS, Small Trade Company, San Francisco, CA
2016 RCK Fashion Kaleidoscope, Small Trade Company, San Francisco, CA
Ruth
2015 Potential Energy, A Story in Mobiles, Curators Cube, Tokyo, Japan
2010 Paperscaping, Bolinas Gallery, Bolinas, CA
2008 Kneass Boat Works Show, Tsurukichi, San Francisco, CA
Selected Group Exhibitions
2025 Thither! The Line Show, Chandler Gallery, Mill Valley, CA
2025 Clay Paper Wood, Laney Art Gallery, Laney Community College, Oakland, CA
2025 Position / Disposition, Chandler Gallery, Mill Valley, CA
2025 10 x Ten 100 Bay Area Women, Faultline Artspace, Oakland, CA
2025 The Box Show, The Jones Institute, San Francisco, CA
2024 Material Rhythm, Werkshack Gallery, Oakland, CA
2024 Works In Progress 2, I98 Utah Street Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2024, 2023, 2017, 2012 Annual Benefit Art Auction Exhibit, Bolinas Museum, Bolinas, CA
2024 Shakerag Faculty Exhibition, St Andrew’s Sewanee School Gallery, Sewanee, TN
2024 Juried Student Show, Laney Art Gallery, Laney Community College, Oakland, CA
2024 Hands – On, Laney Art Gallery, Laney Community College, Oakland, CA
2023 Jewelry Focus, Exit at Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2023 100 Hooks, Blunk Space, Point Reyes, CA
2023 Miniature Show, Bolinas Museum, Bolinas, CA
2023 Time is a Tangled Web, CULT Bureau, Oakland, CA.
2022 Gray Area, Egg Collective, NYC
2021 Miniature Show, Bolinas Museum, Bolinas, CA
2020 Ruth Charlotte Kneass & Pierre Jeanneret In Dialogue, Patrick Parrish Gallery, NYC
2019 Bolinas Thanksgiving Open Studios, Patricia Yenawine Barn Gallery, Bolinas, CA
2019 Portrait, The Jones Institute, San Francisco, CA
2018 Ruth Charlotte Kneass | Chris Whitefield, Bolinas Gallery, Bolinas CA Wanderlust Winter Fair, Small Trade Company, San Francisco, CA
2016 FOG Design+Art, San Francisco, CA
2015 Chris Whitefield | Ruth Kneass, Coastal Marin Artists Gallery, Bolinas Museum, Bolinas, CA
2015 Miniature Show, Bolinas Museum, Bolinas, CA
2014 FOG Design+Art, San Francisco, CA
2013 A Dialogue of Women in America , Gallery S. Bensimon, Paris, France 2010 Open Endless, Marin Headlands, Sausalito, CA
2013 Miniature Show, Bolinas Museum, Bolinas, CA
2010 Burning Man Art Exhibition, Black Rock City, NV
2010 Miniature Show, Bolinas Museum, Bolinas, CA
2009 Miniature Show, Bolinas Museum, Bolinas, CA
2007 Burning Man Art Exhibition, Black Rock City, NV
2007 It Isn’t Funny Anymore, Project 1981, Long Island City, NY
2007 McDonald |Kneass Show, Sliding Door Gallery, Denver, CO
2005 Burning Man Art Exhibition, Black Rock City, NV
2005 Woodworking Group Show, The Crucible, Oakland, CA
Bibliography
Bravo, Tony: The Box Show, Arts & Exhibitions: Pick of The Week, San Francisco Chronicle, January 2025
Bishop, Deborah: “Heavenly Bodies and Useful Things”, American Craft Magazine, “Flourish” Summer
Issue 2021
Madlener, Adrian: “White Split Level Tower Mobile, 2020”, Object of the Week, The Design Edit, Feb. 3
2021
Kneass, Ruth: “Growing up to be an artist”, Illustoria Magazine, Issue 3, Feb. 1, 2017, Pg 34
Nakahara, Shin: “I listen to Nakahara Shinichiro, My favorite American wood craft”, Brutus Magazine, No. 787, Nov. 1, 2014, Pg 109
StuArt: “Paperscaping Bolinas”, Bolinas Hearsay News, New Years Eve, 2010 Bishop, Deborah: “The Year of Living Efficiently”, San Francisco Chronicle Magazine, Jan.13, 2008 Pg 7
DeChabaneix, Catherine: “Pacifique Poésie” (“Pacific Poetry”), Coté Ouest, No. 71, Sept. 2007, Pg 34
Teaching
2024 Shakerag Workshops, Aloft A float Mobile Making Workshop, St Andrew’s Sewanee School, Sewanee, TN
2007 Guest lecturer, Stanley British School, Denver, CO Collections
Works held in private collections in the United States, Japan, France, Italy, Sweden and Bel gium
