California Eden is an edited volume of essays drawn from twenty-five years of Eden, the Quarterly Journal of the California Garden & Landscape History Society. The essays highlight a wide range of historic landscapes, from the professional to the vernacular, and the people who helped shape the cultural heritage of California. Included is Comras’ essay about the midcentury landscape architect Ruth Shellhorn.
Published by Angel City Press / Los Angeles Public Library, 2024.
California Eden: Heritage Landscapes of the Golden State
Ruth Shellhorn
Ruth Shellhorn, is a book about the pioneer landscape architect who helped define "the Southern California look" of midcentury Southern California with such visionary projects as Disneyland, Bullock’s Pasadena, Bullock’s Fashion Square Santa Ana, and a landscape master plan for the University of California at Riverside.
Published by University of Georgia Press and Library of American Landscape History, 2016.
Women, Modernity, and Landscape Architecture
An edited volume of essays presented at a Harvard Graduate School of Design colloquium explores the work and influences of women who belong to the first two pioneering generations of professional landscape architects. Comras’ essay investigates the important impact made by their clients in, “Ruth Patricia Shellhorn: Mid-Century Living in the Southern California Landscape.”
Published by Routledge, 2015.
“China's Emerging National Parks:
Opportunities of China-U.S. Exchange”
Landscape Architecture Magazine, cover story and photographs, May/June 1986.
Publications
“Ruth Shellhorn,” California Eden: Heritage Landscapes of the Golden State, edited by Christine Edstrom O’Hara and Susan Chamberlin, Angel City Press at Los Angeles Public Library, 2024, 100-107.
“Florence Yoch and Ruth Shellhorn: A Friendship That Preserved the Bryner / Doerr Garden in Pasadena,” Eden: Journal of the California Garden & Landscape History Society, Fall 2023, Volume 26, Number 4, 4-21.
“Book Review,” a book review of A Californian’s Guide to the Trees Among Us, by Matt Ritter, Eden: Journal of the California Garden & Landscape History Society, Winter 2023, Volume 26, Number 1, 30.
“Landslide 2020: Women Take the Lead: ASLA Honor Award, Communications,” Landscape Architecture Magazine, Oct 2021, Vol. 111, No. 10, 126-127.
“The Tragedy of the Commons,” a book review of Vision & Place: John Wesley Powell & Reimagining the Colorado River Basin, edited by Jason Robison, Daniel McCool, and Thomas Minckley, Landscape Architecture Magazine, June 2021, Vol. 111, No. 6, 118-126
“Landslide 2020, She Made Her Mark: Disneyland-Ruth Shellhorn,” Landscape Architecture Magazine, Nov. 2020, Vol. 110, No. 11, 98.
“Ruth Shellhorn’s Garden for Norman and Dorothy Chandler,” Eden: Journal of the California Garden & Landscape History Society, Winter 2019, Volume 22, Number 1, 26-33.
“Dreams and Regrets: a book review of Shopping Town: Designing the City in Suburban America, by Victor Gruen,” Landscape Architecture Magazine, July 2018, Vol. 108, No. 7, 136-142.
“Trails of Trees: The J. Paul. Getty Center Turns 20 - OLIN's Mountainside Design Stands the Test of Time,” Landscape Architecture Magazine, October 2017, Vol. 107, No. 10, 202-213.
Dumpelmann, Sonja, “Her California: A Review of Ruth Shellhorn, by Kelly Comras,” Landscape Architecture Magazine, Nov. 2016, Vol. 106, No. 11, 150-158.
Ruth Shellhorn, University of Virginia Press and Library of American Landscape History, 2016.
Southern California Chapter ASLA Honor Award.
“Securing the Ruth Patricia Shellhorn Papers,” View, Summer 2016, Number 16, 2-7.
“Ruth Patricia Shellhorn: Mid-Century Living in the Southern California Landscape,” Women, Modernity, and Landscape Architecture, edited by S. Dumpelmann and J. Beardsley, Routledge, 2015, 165-184.
“Ruth Shellhorn: Landscape Architect of Fantasy,” View, Library of American Landscape History, Summer 2012, Number 12, 14-16.
“Ruth Patricia Shellhorn,” Shaping the American Landscape, University of Virginia Press, 2009, co-authored with Carolyn Doepke Bennett, 317-320.
“Ruth Shellhorn,” Eden: Journal of the California Garden & Landscape History Society, Spring 2007, Vol. 10, No. 1, 15-17.
“Reinventing the Garden,” Palisadian Post, 2004.
“China’s Emerging National Parks: Opportunities of China-U.S. Exchange,” Landscape Architecture Magazine, May/June, 1986, 40-47.
“Franklin Canyon Ranch, ASLA Merit Design Award: Park and Recreational Facilities,” Landscape Architecture Magazine, Sept./Oct. 1984, Vol. 74, No. 5, 77.
Accessible Trails: A Case Study at Malibu Creek State Park, National Park Service, co-authored with Pat Miller and Lisa Bilhorn, 1980.