John E. Ruggles, Ropemaker
Wednesday, June 16, 2010 at 2:27PM Back in 2006, I had an exhibiton of my MFA thesis rope drawings for the New Bedford Open Studios at a building on Sawyer St. called the Ropeworks. It had been sold to become beautiful live/work spaces for artists and its conversion from its former use as a ropeworks had just begun. Artists with no studios of their own could exhibit there that year - perfect for me, as I was looking for a studio in New Bedford at the time.
The Ropeworks had been John Ruggle's building and workplace for many years before selling it, and he still retained a workshop area within. During that exhibiion, I found the hawser rope jumbled inside a shopping cart pushed to the far edge of the exhibition space amongst other bulky construction stuff. Wondering what it was, I began disentangling it from other junk - tugging and pulling on it - until this wondrous, heavy python-sized object finally came free. An inquiry or two lead to the comment - "oh, that's probably John's." Someone took me over to the man's workshop and that's how I met John E. Ruggles, Ropemaker.
We chatted for an hour or so. I showed him my giant rope drawings and he gave me a tour of his now scaled- down shop. John showed me rope-making equipment and told me all about the newspaper clipping on the wall describing this gentleman - John - who had made many miles of crowd-cordoning rope for the Pope's visit to Boston back in the 70's. After awhile, I asked if I could borrow the hawser - and John kindly said I could keep it. I promised to show him what I would do with it. I was thrilled! I had a very strong feeling about the potential in that piece of rope. My gut and intuition are rarely wrong . . . Check out pictures of John here.
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