Ellen Ziegler’s work investigates the psychological and physical world through unconventional or obsolete materials and techniques in drawing, painting, sculpture and installation.

Ziegler attended Antioch College Ohio. Many of her teachers had been students at Black Mountain College – a famous experimental venue whose faculty included Robert Rauschenberg, Jacob Lawrence, John Cage, Ruth Asawa and Buckminster Fuller. Her takeaway from Antioch:  “increasingly accelerate the current of your intuition.”

After graduation, she studied North Indian classical music with Ali Akbar Khan for five years before moving to the Northwest.

Ziegler became an award-winning graphic designer whose clients included the Seattle Mariners, Eddie Bauer, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Seattle Opera, and Perkins Coie. She was the creative director at Ellen Ziegler Design, one of the few woman-owned graphic design firms in Seattle at the time.

She has been a visual artist for 20 years.