Tiny Art Treasures

Miniature Art Society of Florida

Show at Dunedin now thru Feb. 13

Ruth will be demonstrating again on Feb 5th 2005

Tiny Treasure
BY LINDA CHION KENNEY
Published: Nov 16, 2004

Her parents knew at age 2 that Ruth Soucek would always be different.
But Soucek said she didn't come to that realization until three years later when she saw a picture of herself standing next to her younger cousin.
"I was 5 and she was 2 and she's a head taller than I am in that picture," said Soucek, who was born in Switzerland 60 years ago and today stands at 3 feet 3 inches. "That's when I knew, but I have always accepted it. I have always accepted that I was different, and I'd rather be a midget than a giant. They have a heck of a lot more problems."
In a nutshell, that's how Soucek views her life, as a journey filled with adventure and some roadblocks, but certainly not any that should stand in the way of who she is and what she is destined to become.
While some people have it better, others have it worse, the diminutive Brandon resident emphasizes that her height is not a disability.
"You're only as disabled as you want to be," Soucek said. "You have to overcome your disability; it's not going to go away. Still, there are obstacles in every life, things we have to deal with. Like at the bank, the tellers are high. Like at the supermarket, I can only reach to the second shelf. Things like that. But being a midget? No, it's not a disability. It's the reason I became the person I am."
That person is an entrepreneur, who last year started Ruth's Tiny Treasures, a home-based business featuring Soucek's porcelain and miniature watercolors.
That person also is a thespian who, after 12 years in show business, is returning to the stage this month in a featured chorus role with Stage Door Community Theatre.
"Side Show" for Soucek is a classic example of art imitating life. The musical is loosely based on the lives of Daisy and Violet Hilton, twins conjoined at the hip and buttock who starred in vaudeville and appeared in the films "Freaks" and "Chained for Life."
In one of the scenes, their unusual circumstance leads to a media sensation when one of the twins marries.
Soucek herself caused a media sensation when she wed her husband, Fred, a fellow performer with Bob Hermine's Midget Troupe, a troupe Soucek and her parents found while they were traveling in France.
The troupe specialized in a vaudeville type variety show, with acrobats, dancers, singers, magicians, trapeze artists, a swing and a military band and an "Iron Jaw" lady named Mimi whose claim to fame was hanging from her teeth.
Soucek said she joined the troupe of midget because she "always liked adventure and traveling."
Fred, who died in 1996 at age 76, was in the troupe until he grew to be 5 feet 2 inches tall and no longer qualified as a midget.
Ruth, despite growing 3 inches after moving to the United States at age 23, still qualified.
They were wed at Storytown, USA, a Mother Goose-based attraction in Lake George, N.Y.
Soucek said "Side Show" does a good job of depicting life in a sideshow, and she should know. After moving to America, her first job was as a freak in a sideshow staged by the Ringling Brothers circus.
"We actually didn't like to be called freaks, but I guess that's what we are in the eyes of many," Soucek said. "We're not too crazy about that because we are perfectly proportioned. We're just little."
As for the Hilton sisters, Soucek said, "I think they had a much rougher time than I ever did."
The show is about love and acceptance. Brandon magician Patrick Brown, who plays the heavy-handed sideshow boss, met Soucek through his mentor, Steve Zigmont, and his wife, Lisa Zigmont, who also live in Brandon.
Steve Zigmont is an internationally renowned magic and illusionist. Lisa Zigmont's father was Bob Hermine, the man who ran the troupe Soucek performed with for 12 years.
"I've never seen Ruth as having a disability because she has the ability to make everybody laugh and she cheers the room up when she walks in," Brown said. "She's just so positive all the time. How can anybody complain about problems in their life when you meet somebody like Ruth, who has been challenged. And the way she faces that is incredible. She just acts like she's no different from anyone else, and she isn't."
Her humor comes through in recounting her off-Broadway work in two shows, "The Daffodil Dwarf" and "Down by the River Where Water Lilies Are Disfigured Every Day." She deadpans the delivery of the title, then adds, "What a weird name that was!"
Two jobs in electronics, soldering and assembling, one in Long Island, N.Y., and the other in Temple Terrace, proved her worth in the workplace, but from both jobs she was laid off, thanks to slowing business.
She reacted to losing a job pretty much the same way she adjusted to becoming the only person in her extended family to live life as a midget.
"You deal with what you've got and that's pretty much it," Soucek said.
Soucek is not against taking a risk, which is what led her to return open Ruth's Tiny Treasures, her home-based business, more than a year ago.
With great detail and "very meticulously," she hand-paints porcelain and miniature watercolors, specializing in botanicals.
"When I lost my job, I decided I'd do what I wanted to do all my life -- start my own business," Soucek said. "Artists run on both sides of my family, and I started painting at a very early age, as a school girl maybe 9 or 10. I started painting stationery and my grandmother sold it at the ladies' clubs. As I got older, she introduced me to porcelain painting."
Today, with a studio in her Brandon home and two kilns in the garage, Soucek makes do as an artist. She credits her family and life in Switzerland as "daddy's little big girl" with giving her the optimistic outlook on life that led her through a 12-year career in show business, a 27-year marriage, a decades-long career in electronics and the launching of her own business, a venture she is attacking with the same gusto that brought her thus far in life.
As Soucek put it: "I have a bucket full of confidence and determination and this is going to work if it kills me!"
"Side Show" runs through Nov. 19-21 at the Barn Theatre at Winthrop on Bloomingdale Avenue between Watson and Providence roads.
Curtain time is 8 p.m., except for the Sunday matinee at 3 p.m. Tickets are $15 for adults, $12 for seniors and students and $10 for groups of 10 or more.
Todd Barber and Carlton Jones are directing the show. For tickets, call

Miniature Art Society of Florida

Hi Ruth...

I just thought you'd like to know....

ALL FIVE of your entries were accepted into the upcoming Show!!!!!! That is very commendable, especially for a first-time entrant. I am very pleased and proud that you were able to accomplish this.

The jurying and judging are complete, and now we are in the process of mounting the artworks onto display panels. These panels will then be hung on the walls of the Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art in Tarpon Springs for the three week exhibit, which will begin on January 18, 2004.

I truly hope that you will be able to spend some time at the show. The opening weekend is very exciting and includes an artists' reception and an Awards Brunch. Both our newsletter "Small Talk" and the MASF website will contain information about these events, or else I can tell you. As of the first Monday of the show and every day thereafter, we will have artists demonstrating their skills. People are welcome to sit, talk and watch the artist at work.

Congratulations on being accepted into the Show!! We received more than 1200 entries, 891 of which were accepted. Of the 55 first-time entrants, 33 of them had works accepted into the Show. You have done yourself proud!!!

Truly,
Carol Curtiss

Hi
the suspense of the where abouts of my artwork became unbearable, and I called Paper Mills in New Jersey this morning. Nine out of the 10 paintings were accepted. You'd be suprised which has been rejected, I was.
I thought that my "First Prize" (the pink rose extended into the matting), will take first prize...., but I am supprised that's the rejected one. The lady on the telephone has no idea why it's been rejected. Would be interresting to find out, and I will. For the show in Dunedin I will paint two
porcelain pieces (Oval tiles) one with Field fFowers and one with Alpine Flowers. I know you are partial to the roses, but at the last show the Alpines and the Field Flowers were the ones sold. Don't know if I told you. The painting that I donated to Leepa Rattner Museum, sold for $85.00 at the Silent Auction. I have painted another batch of porcelain, and fired it Monday evening.
That's all for today.

Ruth

ruth@tinyarttreasures.com