Ruth Lauer Manenti received an MFA from The Yale School of Art in painting and drawing in 1994. In 2012, she was given a large format camera and taught herself how to use it. Gradually she accomplished what she was striving for in drawing and painting through photography. Her mother was also an artist who left behind a legacy of unknown work. Part of Ruth’s determination as an artist is to reward her mother for her efforts and to create a continuum. Ruth is currently working towards an MFA in photography at Hartford University where she received a merit scholarship towards her studies. Her father found beauty in a hole in his shirt; in the way that it spoke of impermanence and fragility. Her mother was grateful that there was a tree she could admire from the kitchen window while washing dishes. Her parents endured a lot of suffering yet lived with poetic sensibilities that Ruth has inherited from them. Since breaking her neck in a car crash at the age of twenty, Ruth has developed a spiritual life and practice that has propelled much of her photographic work. She lives in the Catskill Mountains in NY with her husband, a nurse and tai chi practitioner and their 2 cats.