Watercolors Display Woman's World Travels

At 86 years old, Ruth McCormick has traveled the world, survived two battles with breast cancer, worked 40 years in advertising – and still paints every day.

“I don’t clean or do the things I should do – I paint,” McCormick said.

McCormick of Edgewood used her talent for art during a 40-year career in advertising. She worked at Gimbels Department Store until it closed in 1986.

Born in Greensburg, McCormick said she has lived in Edgewood “forever,” getting her start in the art world after learning from an aunt who made paper dolls.

“While working, I traveled around the world doing painting workshops in Mexico, the Orient, the United States, Canada, Europe and Africa with famous instructors,” McCormick said. “I spent a number of years doing classes at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts making ceramics.”

Now a member of the a local group of women artists who meet to share work and advice, McCormick’s art is exclusively created in watercolor paints. She enjoys painting children’s portraits, pictures of homes in the neighborhood, animals and scenes from her travels around the world.

She sells her paintings at different shows and locations in Pittsburgh along with her niece, Shirley McCormick, who makes handbags.

During her time as an illustrator in advertising, McCormick had the chance to walk on the Great Wall of China. She now has a painting she created after the journey.

McCormick said after all these years, she still works every day and wants people to take away one thing from her paintings – happiness.

“I am just very thankful,” she said. “The fact that I can still move around and I am an old lady – I never grew up, I guess.”

and member of the Artful Divas, has some of McCormick’s paintings hanging on a wall in her home.

“Ruth’s paintings reflect her travels around the world. They take me to countries I will probably never get a chance to visit,” she said.

For more information on the paintings, McCormick can be reached at 412-241-7343.