Artist Ginny Ruffner says her first artistic encounters with glass were in neon.

The artist, now reknowned for sculptures in glass and lampworking, first started working in the medium in the 1970s. Inspired while studying at the University of Georgia by the work of French artist Marcel Duchamp, Ruffner says she began experimenting with adding neon to her paintings to bring more light into them, culminating in her 1975 masters thesis exhibition of paintings on glass.

"At that time, there wasn't much work being done on glass," Ruffner says. Now much of her work includes lampworked glass as well as steel and bronze in large and small pieces.

Through Feb.5, Bellevue Arts Museum is showing an exhibit of Ruffner's work, titled "Aesthetic Engineering: The Imagination Cycle." The exhibit includes 15 large sculptures and more than 1,000 flowers made of metal and glass. On Dec. 3, at 6 pm, the museum will present a screening of ShadowCatcher Entertainment's documentary, "Ginny Ruffner: A Not So Still Life," followed by a question-and-answer session with Ruffner.

Ruffner was recently inducted into the American Craft Council's College of Fellows, and she is working on a large-scale sculpture, named "Urban Garden," that will be located at the northwest corner of Seventh Avenue and Union Street in downtown Seattle.

Ruffner says she continues to work now on a series that explores the mechanics of language and how it evolved.

"It's not just verbal, language can be visual and symbolic, too,"she says. "The entire engineering series is a visual thought."

Ruffner continues to add to the series, recently completing works entitled "Alliteration" and "Ululation," both visual explorations of literary and oral language concepts. Alliteration is the repetition of sounds at the beginning of words, and ululation is the name for an oral sound made by rapid movement of the tongue that are not words, that is sometimes likened to howling. Those two new works are not part of the Bellevue Arts Museum exhibit, Ruffner says, but illustrate her vision of the series.

Another one of Ruffner's sculptures, which is on display in the exhibit, is a representation of a gene helix, seemingly growing amidst a bed of delicate glass flowers.

Ruffner has given birth to a large body of work over her prolific career, including paintings, public art projects, and books. When asked if she has a favorite piece on display, she is magnanimous.

"They are all my children," she says.

If you go:

The Bellevue Arts Museum is open Mon – Thurs., 11am – 5pm; Fri, 11am – 8pm; and Sat and Sun, 12pm – 5pm.

This Friday, Nov. 5, admission to museum is free from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.

More information:

Ruffner also has a Web site, www.ginnyruffner.com, which details her previous and ongoing work.