At 98, an Oregon woman fashions recycling into, well, fashion

Ruthanne Moore is 98 years old and she is still creating. Mostly, she creates things from life’s detritus.

A collection of old iced tea cans becomes a necklace. A collection of old bobbins, same.

Moore looks at piles of trash and sees possibilities.

A stack of newspapers?

“They should be in recycling,” she says from her chair inside the art studio at Willamette View, a retirement community in Milwaukie where she has lived since 2001.

“They’re just sitting there taking up space.”

But, she asks as she considers that stack of newspapers, “What could I do with them that’s fun for both me and them?”

Moore, who grew up in Portland, went to Oregon State University then returned to the city, married and raised three children. Briefly, before kids, she worked as an occupational therapist, so she knows some things about the rewards and benefits of working with your hands. She feels a connection with the materials, she says.

“I’ve always been interested in doing things by hand,” she says.

She also feels a connection to Sally Giles and Kristen Larsen, licensed art therapists who operate Artworks Studio inside Willamette View. Moore says she goes to the studio every day, “until they close the door and kick me out.”

Moore has made a few dresses out of paper, putting the pieces together using a glue gun and glue. She made a dress from the post cards she received and saved over the course of her life. She crafted an elaborate wedding dress out of nine kinds of paper, all of it white, and gave the creation to her granddaughter after her wedding in North Carolina.

A lifelong newspaper reader, she made a dress out of newspapers (including, yes, The Oregonian).

“I like to read them,” she says. “I think that’s why I glommed onto newspapers.”

Moore “keeps up with current events and politics,” Giles says. “She’s brought a lot of great conversations into the studio.”

Several of Moore’s paper dresses have been proudly displayed at two of Willamette View’s five galleries, WallWorks Gallery and White Oak gallery. After exhibiting, her family claimed two of them: the post card dress and the wedding dress. The dress Moore made from maps is on permanent display at Artworks Studio, where Moore spends her days.

The newspaper dress is currently up for adoption. Moore would like to see it go to a good home. (If you’re interested, call Call Kristen Larsen at Willamette View at 503-652-6633.)

The pandemic put a pause on a lot of Moore’s work. Though they had to close the studio, Giles and Larsen created occasional pandemic-safe events for residents. They took materials to residents’ rooms, including Moore’s.

Over the course of the pandemic and from her room, Moore worked sporadically on a colorful, purple-sleeved top. She used a variety of heavier paper stock, some plain and some featuring whimsical designs.

Mostly though, she read. “I just did what I could to keep my mind busy,” she said.

These days, Moore is, you could say, transitioning — out of a global pandemic, which kept her holed up in her room, and into the art studio, where she is back to visiting daily.

She isn’t making anything just yet. She’s not thinking too hard about what what comes next. She’s just trying to keep her mind open.

“I’m on vacation” she says, smiling.

Making things, being creative, it’s fun, she says.

“And what I’m looking for these days is fun.”