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Kettle Shoemaker Ross was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1933. She studied at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1954-55 and, after moving to Edmonton with her husband and children in 1968, began art classes in 1976 through the University of Alberta Extension program, where she studied printmaking, painting and drawing. Following three years of study with the Extension program, she enrolled in the Bachelor of Fine Arts program at the University of Alberta, receiving her degree in 1984.
Kettle Shoemaker Ross worked primarily with landscape, and very often used as her primary subject the wooded ravine that was barely a block from her Edmonton home – a small area of wild nature in the centre of the city that offered a variety of natural motifs. She was drawn to the dense, closed-in arrangement of tree trunks and leafy growth that she found there, along with the occasional glimpses of bright light through the branches that she saw as creating an allegory for hope and the possibility of “joy,” a word that figured prominently in her discussion of her art. She was very involved with a concern for the environment, both in her art and in her personal life, and was cautious about using solvents and any other non-environmentally friendly materials in her paintings.
Kettle Shoemaker Ross' work was included in a number of solo and group exhibitions throughout the Province, and is represented in several public and private collections, including those of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, the City of St. Albert and the University of Alberta.
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