Shaw, Ruth Faison, 1887-1969

Ruth Faison Shaw was born in 1887 near Wilmington, N.C. She worked as a school teacher in North Carolina before World War I, but in 1918 she traveled to France to travel and support the war effort in a volunteer position through the Young Men's Christian Association. After a brief return to North Carolina, Shaw went back to Europe in 1920 and worked as a teacher for British and American children in Rome. During this time, she published several books: Offerings and Offsprings, The Old Shoe, and The Second Old Shoe . She also developed her interest in finger-painting. In 1932, Shaw left Rome to teach finger painting at the Mac Jennet School in Paris. Soon after, she moved to New York, where she opened the Shaw Finger Paint Studio and published two more books: Finger Painting and Finger Painting and How I Do It . She retired in 1959 and moved to Chapel Hill, N.C., where she conducted research on the use of finger painting in psychiatric therapy at the Department of Psychiatry at North Carolina Memorial Hospital. Ruth Faison Shaw died on 3 December 1969.

From the guide to the Ruth Faison Shaw Papers, 1908-1968, (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Historical Collection.)

Ruth Faison Shaw was an artist, teacher, and art therapist who lived in North Carolina, New York, and Rome, finally settling in Chapel Hill, N.C. She was a proponent of using finger painting in education and therapy work.

From the description of Ruth Faison Shaw papers, 1908-1968. WorldCat record id: 25422536