Frances Anderton

Producer, Which Way, L.A.? and DnA: Design and Architecture

When I first met Ruth, she was obviously passionately interested in politics and culture – music, art, literature, film, theater – but she seemed relatively uninterested in design, perhaps because it was functional and mass-produced, not a fine art form. But then she redecorated the basement offices and suddenly became fixated on the furniture. She would call me into her office to pore over pamphlets of Eames chairs. And in her office was a very different kind of seat that she had also selected: a petite sofa upholstered in a soft yellow velvety fabric. It was as dainty as Ruth's French-polished nails and coiffed, pixie cut hair. 

This sofa was a place where you might sit and shoot the breeze with Ruth as she leaped from topic to topic: Negotiations in Congress! A brilliant new book! Motherly advice for one's child! Or it was a place where you might be pinioned to the seat for a shredding about everything that was wrong with the show you had been quietly producing for the past year. One was fearsome, the other delightful. Both were illuminating, like that sunny sofa chosen by this amazing person with many sides.