December 2026 Artist of the Month: Ruthie Basham
Exhibit Title: Mandala Blessings
Ruthie Basham is a trained painter, yoga teacher, and dancer, weaving together visual arts and movement therapies for over 25 years to serve a diverse range of clients and students within her Ann Arbor and NYC communities and internationally. After receiving her BFA in drawing and painting from the University of Michigan, she began creating hundreds of custom mandalas—circular, meditative paintings for focus on mind/body/spirit integration; Ruthie is committed to leading her clients to discover the beauty of their pure essence. She is passionate about researching, preserving, and sharing cultural and ecological wisdom to inspire her clients to connect more deeply to their unique gifts.
Ruthie’s work hangs in private and public collections worldwide, and she has exhibited as well as having work on permanent display at Brooklyn Museum, Adidas/Wanderlust Yoga Line Launch, Sotheby’s, and Barclay Center.
Her movement therapy certifications include thousands of hours as a trauma-informed yoga and meditation teacher through Pure Yoga NYC, along with yoga therapeutics, acupressure (Shiatsu therapy), anatomy, Ayurveda, and doula care. Clients have described her presence as feeling like a warm hug and her yoga and dance classes as having a holistic and grounded rhythm and flow, deepening strength, joint mobility, flexibility, alignment, balance, posture, muscle engagement, recovery, mental health, awareness of their breath, and overall well-being.
Throughout Ruthie’s childhood and teen years, she studied a wide array of yoga forms like Vinyasa, Iyengar, Ashtanga, and Hatha. Her professional dance background includes training and performing with many renowned teachers like NYC Ballet legend Suzanne Farrell, School of American Ballet, Alvin Ailey, Martha Graham, and National Ballet of Senegal. In her free time, Ruthie loves singing, cooking, and spending time with family and friends.
This balance of art and movement echoes the mandala’s teachings, holding stillness at the center of the universe with the dance of life encircling its circumference.
Artist Statement:
“I am inspired by artistic, cultural, and ecological wisdom that illuminates a deeper connection to our true nature.” —Ruthie Basham
Returning from NYC to her roots in Ann Arbor, where she used to hang out at Crazy Wisdom as a U of M student, this is the first time Ruthie is offering a collection of original works of fine art for the general public. With over 25 years of experience creating hundreds of intuitive personal mandala paintings worldwide, this exhibit explores collective longing around themes of compassion for ourselves and others, preserving ecology, highlighting spiritual wisdom, and revealing hidden ancestral gifts. Ruthie is humbled by her role as a translator between this world and the unseen world, dedicated to the preservation, protection, illumination and evolution of our sacred circle.
“The web of life both cradles us and calls us to weave it further.”
—Joanna Macy
Join us for mandala meditations, music, gentle movement, and nourishing refreshments to open and seal the circle of Ruthie’s December gallery exhibit. We are very much looking forward to welcoming you!
Website: www.ruthiebasham.com