Landscape architect, 17-year Somerville resident, Cheri Ruane.
By JT Thompson
Cheri Ruane is a landscape architect with Weston & Sampson’s Design Studio. She studied landscape architecture at UMass Amherst, then worked for five years with the Boston Parks Department. In 1999, she decided to make the shift from the public to the private sector and earned a masters in landscape architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
Ruane and her husband have been living in Somerville for 17 years. She speaks with the good-humored self-confidence of someone who is clear about their path in life.
“I grew up in New Jersey – which is the Garden State. A lot of people forget that,” Ruane laughs. “I loved to play in the woods when I was a kid. There was a strip of woods behind our house which I thought was for me and my friends – now I realize it was a drainage ditch,” she laughs again, “But we had a lot of fun playing there, running around, making forts.
“I was a real tomboy for a long time. I identified as one. When I was 9 or 10 I was still going around with no shirt on. I mean, why not, who cares? But I was met with disapproval – I realized I shouldn’t, couldn’t. That was the first time I remember feeling like I was being treated differently because I was female.”
Did you have any role models while you were growing up?
“One of my role models as I got older was Gabby Reece, a pro volleyball player. She was over six feet, like me. Tall and strong. Her, and Martina Navratilova – strong women redefining what it means to be a woman, what’s possible for a woman.
“Another role model was my older cousin Dave. He was always very generous during my teenage years, listened to me, gave me advice. He really helped me get through my teenage angst.
“He had a landscape contracting business, and every summer in high school I would go stay with my aunt and work for Dave. It was hard work, digging irrigation ditches, weeding, planting trees. Hard labor. But I got to hang out with him, and that’s where I first learned about landscape architecture.
“Students from UMass Amherst would come work for Dave, and they were studying landscape architecture. So when I went to UMass Amherst as a freshman, I already knew I wanted to be a landscape architect. Most people don’t know that’s a thing – architecture sure, but landscape architect, what’s that?
“It was in college that I first figured out how to take control of my identity as a woman. It was a college of 25,000 kids. No one knew me, there were no preconceptions, I could choose my own identity. So when I was 18-19, I began to understand myself as a woman, as part of that community. I was always challenging what could and couldn’t be done as a woman.
“It was mostly men in my major. Our studio was in a basement – there were fallout shelter signs on the stairs going down! – and one late night, the guys put up a picture of a nude woman on the studio wall.
“I said, What’s up with this? What the f**k?
“They tried to make me feel bad, that I was being too sensitive.
“So I went to an Amherst bookstore and bought a whole bunch of stickers that said ‘This insults women.’” Ruane laughs. “Only in Amherst could you find a bookstore like that. Anyway, I put the stickers all over their picture.
“And then they got mad – they were like WTF! The professor had to step in. They got to feel what I had felt.”
How did you end up in Somerville?
“After I graduated, I called the Boston Society of Landscape Architects and just asked if there were any jobs open. It was so old school – just got on the phone. And they faxed me an opening – on that old curly fax paper,” she laughs. “The Boston Parks Department was looking for an assistant project manager for historic parks.
“It was a great feeling of, this is what I’m supposed to do.
“But after five years – I did a lot of Emerald Necklace work – I realized I wanted to actually design the parks, not just manage the design process.
“But I didn’t have the technical skills necessary to get hired in the private sector. So I went back to school to make the shift from public to private, and got a masters at the Harvard School of Design.
“I graduated the summer of 2001, and got married that same summer. We were living right on the line between Cambridge and Somerville in Inman Square. At that time, Somerville was still being treated like the underdog, and I felt an affinity with it. It was the grittier step sister of Cambridge, scrappier, more real.
“And then we found a place in Union Square we could afford, and I immediately fell in love with Somerville. Our neighbors told us we’d never be from Somerville – they called us Barneys,” Ruane laughs. “We’ve only been here 17 years.
“I feel really happy that I’ve been able to do a number of landscape projects in Somerville. I love that my work improves people’s quality of life. I’m really proud of our work at Albion Park. It was very much a community driven design process and the results have been long lasting and a very successful open space.”
What was your experience of the Women’s March?
“I was already planning to go Washington, I had a B&B reserved. I thought it was going to be this historic moment of the first woman president.
“After the election, I was depressed, sad, worried. Then rumors started going around about a march.
“I asked my friend Shelley if she wanted to go. She said, Hell yes, let’s do it.
“The experience really started in South Station. Women talking, all the pink hats, women knitting hats. It was exciting.
“When we got off the train in DC, we had to walk through the staging for the inauguration. It was really sobering. There were cops with riot gear on, protestors arguing with Trump supporters. It was pretty civil, but so loaded with emotion. It was intense.
“On the day of the inauguration, with Shelley on my shoulders, we were chanting, Shame on you! Right near us was a bunch of guys shouting, Trump! Trump! It felt scary, there were so many of them. It was a little threatening. I didn’t feel like I was going to get my ass kicked, but it was scary.
“I was wearing a Rise Up hat and this guy got in my face and said, ‘We have! Are you just mad that no one will grab your pussy?’
“I lost it. I held my phone up to him, said, Say it again, say it into my phone! And he did! He was trying to provoke me, and it was working.
“Shelley got me to leave. I felt awful, defeated.
“The next morning, I was still feeling down about the state of things in the country. We ended up pretty close to the stage, but we didn’t know where the March was starting, or what was going to happen. There were a lot of different speakers, a lot of focus on making it intersectional, there was a lot going on up there.
“Then Madonna got on. She said, ‘People think this will be one and done. Well, fuck that!’ Then, we heard this roar far behind us. That was when we realized how huge it was – they were just hearing what Madonna had said on the speakers. We hadn’t realized there were so many people behind us. It was huge.
“People started chanting March! March! They told us from the stage that the whole route was already full.
“So we just started walking around, passing other groups, chanting. It felt really amazing and empowering and wonderful.
“So much love. No hate at all. There were cops wearing pink pussy hats, they were high fiving us. On Inauguration Day, they’d had riot gear on, were holding AK-47s, it felt like a police state. Now it was so different. It felt like, This is what America is like. So much great love and support. The cops, businesses along the route, people from the upper stories of buildings.
“Then military personnel in white vans with tinted windows came driving through – and when they opened their doors they started clapping for us. It was such a great feeling – that people within the institution support this, support us.
“It’s one of the best things I’ve ever experienced from the position of not just being upset, but taking physical action. It felt productive.”
What’s your perspective on the #metoo movement?
It’s actually been really helpful. In my industry, the design industry, a google doc started circulating, about architects that are bad to work with – people who were accused of varying degrees of sexual misconduct. Don’t be alone in the office with this guy, don’t expect a promotion from this guy unless you’re willing to put out. A lot of them are rock stars in the industry – the bigger the ego, the bigger the sense of entitlement.
“One result of the movement is a feeling that you don’t have to be quiet, that you can say something. A feeling that for my daughter and son the bad treatment of women will just not be accepted.”
What do you think a more woman-led society would be like?
Ruane laughs. “When Wonder Woman came out, I wanted to google their island. Does this place really exist – I want to go there!”
She pauses.
“I think it would be a more productive society. Less need to posture, to be right, to have the answer. More desire to listen, to come to consensus, to compromise, to collaborate.”
What would you like to say to women in America today?
“Keep on keeping on. One thing that frustrates me is how long things are taking. Equal pay. Feeling safe on the street. Access to reproductive health services. Being in charge of our own bodies. That all feels threatened still, in 2018.
“It’s easy to get down.
“But a lot of people are now running for office that wouldn’t have before, people very focused on creating a more equitable society. I have friends who, the first thing they do when they wake up in the morning, is call senators. Make donations.
“I’m a rabid voter – get there early, get people to come with me.
“So, play your part, keep on going. Keep alive the hope we’re going to get to a better place. Sometimes that’s really hard to do. But we’ve got to keep on keeping on.”
Beyond the March: Visions of a more woman-led America
Landscape architect, 17-year Somerville resident, Cheri Ruane.
By JT Thompson
Cheri Ruane is a landscape architect with Weston & Sampson’s Design Studio. She studied landscape architecture at UMass Amherst, then worked for five years with the Boston Parks Department. In 1999, she decided to make the shift from the public to the private sector and earned a masters in landscape architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
Ruane and her husband have been living in Somerville for 17 years. She speaks with the good-humored self-confidence of someone who is clear about their path in life.
“I grew up in New Jersey – which is the Garden State. A lot of people forget that,” Ruane laughs. “I loved to play in the woods when I was a kid. There was a strip of woods behind our house which I thought was for me and my friends – now I realize it was a drainage ditch,” she laughs again, “But we had a lot of fun playing there, running around, making forts.
“I was a real tomboy for a long time. I identified as one. When I was 9 or 10 I was still going around with no shirt on. I mean, why not, who cares? But I was met with disapproval – I realized I shouldn’t, couldn’t. That was the first time I remember feeling like I was being treated differently because I was female.”
Did you have any role models while you were growing up?
“One of my role models as I got older was Gabby Reece, a pro volleyball player. She was over six feet, like me. Tall and strong. Her, and Martina Navratilova – strong women redefining what it means to be a woman, what’s possible for a woman.
“Another role model was my older cousin Dave. He was always very generous during my teenage years, listened to me, gave me advice. He really helped me get through my teenage angst.
“He had a landscape contracting business, and every summer in high school I would go stay with my aunt and work for Dave. It was hard work, digging irrigation ditches, weeding, planting trees. Hard labor. But I got to hang out with him, and that’s where I first learned about landscape architecture.
“Students from UMass Amherst would come work for Dave, and they were studying landscape architecture. So when I went to UMass Amherst as a freshman, I already knew I wanted to be a landscape architect. Most people don’t know that’s a thing – architecture sure, but landscape architect, what’s that?
“It was in college that I first figured out how to take control of my identity as a woman. It was a college of 25,000 kids. No one knew me, there were no preconceptions, I could choose my own identity. So when I was 18-19, I began to understand myself as a woman, as part of that community. I was always challenging what could and couldn’t be done as a woman.
“It was mostly men in my major. Our studio was in a basement – there were fallout shelter signs on the stairs going down! – and one late night, the guys put up a picture of a nude woman on the studio wall.
“I said, What’s up with this? What the f**k?
“They tried to make me feel bad, that I was being too sensitive.
“So I went to an Amherst bookstore and bought a whole bunch of stickers that said ‘This insults women.’” Ruane laughs. “Only in Amherst could you find a bookstore like that. Anyway, I put the stickers all over their picture.
“And then they got mad – they were like WTF! The professor had to step in. They got to feel what I had felt.”
How did you end up in Somerville?
“After I graduated, I called the Boston Society of Landscape Architects and just asked if there were any jobs open. It was so old school – just got on the phone. And they faxed me an opening – on that old curly fax paper,” she laughs. “The Boston Parks Department was looking for an assistant project manager for historic parks.
“It was a great feeling of, this is what I’m supposed to do.
“But after five years – I did a lot of Emerald Necklace work – I realized I wanted to actually design the parks, not just manage the design process.
“But I didn’t have the technical skills necessary to get hired in the private sector. So I went back to school to make the shift from public to private, and got a masters at the Harvard School of Design.
“I graduated the summer of 2001, and got married that same summer. We were living right on the line between Cambridge and Somerville in Inman Square. At that time, Somerville was still being treated like the underdog, and I felt an affinity with it. It was the grittier step sister of Cambridge, scrappier, more real.
“And then we found a place in Union Square we could afford, and I immediately fell in love with Somerville. Our neighbors told us we’d never be from Somerville – they called us Barneys,” Ruane laughs. “We’ve only been here 17 years.
“I feel really happy that I’ve been able to do a number of landscape projects in Somerville. I love that my work improves people’s quality of life. I’m really proud of our work at Albion Park. It was very much a community driven design process and the results have been long lasting and a very successful open space.”
What was your experience of the Women’s March?
“I was already planning to go Washington, I had a B&B reserved. I thought it was going to be this historic moment of the first woman president.
“After the election, I was depressed, sad, worried. Then rumors started going around about a march.
“I asked my friend Shelley if she wanted to go. She said, Hell yes, let’s do it.
“The experience really started in South Station. Women talking, all the pink hats, women knitting hats. It was exciting.
“When we got off the train in DC, we had to walk through the staging for the inauguration. It was really sobering. There were cops with riot gear on, protestors arguing with Trump supporters. It was pretty civil, but so loaded with emotion. It was intense.
“On the day of the inauguration, with Shelley on my shoulders, we were chanting, Shame on you! Right near us was a bunch of guys shouting, Trump! Trump! It felt scary, there were so many of them. It was a little threatening. I didn’t feel like I was going to get my ass kicked, but it was scary.
“I was wearing a Rise Up hat and this guy got in my face and said, ‘We have! Are you just mad that no one will grab your pussy?’
“I lost it. I held my phone up to him, said, Say it again, say it into my phone! And he did! He was trying to provoke me, and it was working.
“Shelley got me to leave. I felt awful, defeated.
“The next morning, I was still feeling down about the state of things in the country. We ended up pretty close to the stage, but we didn’t know where the March was starting, or what was going to happen. There were a lot of different speakers, a lot of focus on making it intersectional, there was a lot going on up there.
“Then Madonna got on. She said, ‘People think this will be one and done. Well, fuck that!’ Then, we heard this roar far behind us. That was when we realized how huge it was – they were just hearing what Madonna had said on the speakers. We hadn’t realized there were so many people behind us. It was huge.
“People started chanting March! March! They told us from the stage that the whole route was already full.
“So we just started walking around, passing other groups, chanting. It felt really amazing and empowering and wonderful.
“So much love. No hate at all. There were cops wearing pink pussy hats, they were high fiving us. On Inauguration Day, they’d had riot gear on, were holding AK-47s, it felt like a police state. Now it was so different. It felt like, This is what America is like. So much great love and support. The cops, businesses along the route, people from the upper stories of buildings.
“Then military personnel in white vans with tinted windows came driving through – and when they opened their doors they started clapping for us. It was such a great feeling – that people within the institution support this, support us.
“It’s one of the best things I’ve ever experienced from the position of not just being upset, but taking physical action. It felt productive.”
What’s your perspective on the #metoo movement?
It’s actually been really helpful. In my industry, the design industry, a google doc started circulating, about architects that are bad to work with – people who were accused of varying degrees of sexual misconduct. Don’t be alone in the office with this guy, don’t expect a promotion from this guy unless you’re willing to put out. A lot of them are rock stars in the industry – the bigger the ego, the bigger the sense of entitlement.
“One result of the movement is a feeling that you don’t have to be quiet, that you can say something. A feeling that for my daughter and son the bad treatment of women will just not be accepted.”
What do you think a more woman-led society would be like?
Ruane laughs. “When Wonder Woman came out, I wanted to google their island. Does this place really exist – I want to go there!”
She pauses.
“I think it would be a more productive society. Less need to posture, to be right, to have the answer. More desire to listen, to come to consensus, to compromise, to collaborate.”
What would you like to say to women in America today?
“Keep on keeping on. One thing that frustrates me is how long things are taking. Equal pay. Feeling safe on the street. Access to reproductive health services. Being in charge of our own bodies. That all feels threatened still, in 2018.
“It’s easy to get down.
“But a lot of people are now running for office that wouldn’t have before, people very focused on creating a more equitable society. I have friends who, the first thing they do when they wake up in the morning, is call senators. Make donations.
“I’m a rabid voter – get there early, get people to come with me.
“So, play your part, keep on going. Keep alive the hope we’re going to get to a better place. Sometimes that’s really hard to do. But we’ve got to keep on keeping on.”