Ellen Ward

Ellen Ward, artist, provocateur, educator, wife, and friend, died on the evening of March 19 after wrestling long and hard with brain cancer. She was 55.

When those who knew Ellen think back on her, one of two things will jump quickly to mind: her brilliance as an artist and illustrator and her outrageous sense of humor, likely both at the same time. Often those two elements of her personality combined to hilarious effect, in her caricatures of bouffant-haired fashionistas from the 1960s playing the accordion or elegant, sophisticated women-about-town holding up a martini glass, with pinkie outstretched, of course. And bunnies, always bunnies, a reflection of her childhood nickname.

Ellen trained as a textile designer first at the College of New Rochelle and then at Carnegie Mellon University. She spent the 1990s working in the fashion industry mostly for the designer Nicole Miller, where she contributed to the fashion house’s reputation for quirky and memorable fabrics. She also designed housewares and everyday textiles. There’s a chance you have encountered a design of Ellen’s in your everyday life. Whether it was a beach towel sold at Target, a set of greeting cards or a design on a set of plates, that design probably would have made you smile, or better yet, laugh out loud.

Ellen was never without a sketchbook in her hand, she constantly observed the world and documented it, whether it was to record the burger eaten by her devoted and beloved husband, Gene Rivera, or a gouache sketch of a downtown Concord intersection rendered as she had her tires rotated. She often shared her visual musings on her blog: Lost in Cow Town <https://lostincowtown.wordpress.com>. Ellen encouraged the formation of a local Urban Sketcher group <http://www.charlotteobserver.com/entertainment/article9084356.html> in Charlotte, leading the group to draw the Charlotte Symphony as it practiced and instructing willing neophytes to paint flowers at the Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden in Belmont. Ellen also taught illustration and graphic design at Winthrop University and Central Piedmont Community College where she encouraged her students to find their own ways to see the world.

Ellen fully lived her email handle: Surrender to Render.

One can only imagine Ellen is now joyfully reuniting with her beloved father Charlie and her dog Casper and cat Manus and that she’s already corralling the heavenly chorus to toss away the harps and embrace kazoos instead.

Ellen is survived by her husband, her mother, Eileen Ward, brother Steven and sister Catherine Ward Savage, along with countless friends and students who will miss her sass and sense of the absurd, and of the beautiful.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to the Caring House in Durham NC, where Ellen and Gene were given hospitality as she underwent treatment.

Funeral services will take place at St. James the Greater Catholic Church in Concord NC on Monday, March 26.  Visitation will be at 1pm with mass to follow at 2pm.

If you want to learn more about Ellen, here’s a link to a short video: https://vimeo.com/190444182