Known for his use of papercuttings, printmaking, and shadow puppetry to convey political themes, Ruin's distinctive style has appeared in several books, art exhibitions, and as a featured member of the Justseeds Artists' Cooperative.
Ruin and Books founded the record label Desperate Commodities to release their collaborations on vinyl and CD, including 2007's The Nothing Factory and 2011's Capital I and the Royal Waltzing We.
Inspired by Valentino Achak Deng and Dave Eggers' book What Is the What, Ruin's silhouettes moved through land and seascapes of layered multi-colored acetate images to tell the story of African refugees with a live violin-and-vocal soundtrack by Katt Hernandez.
He became a non-musical member of the band Lesser known Neutrinos and had regular sessions with electronic music artist Charles Cohen before founding his own Ominous Cloud Ensemble with a roster of Philadelphia improvisers, including some from the Sun Ra Arkestra and Fern Knight, accompanied by occasional poets and dancers.
[4][5] In that same year Ruin completed the first 100 feet of Long/Gone, a panorama performance cut from a very long scroll of 5-inch-wide paper and then projected onto a wall and scored by the Ominous Cloud Ensemble as an hour-long work.