She was formerly a member of Booming Airplanes, The Heavy Blinkers, The Guthries and Reels, and now performs as Ruth Minnikin and her Bandwagon.
The artists that Minnikin has performed with include Beth Orton, David Byrne, Kris Kristofferson, Blue Rodeo, Calexico, Joel Plaskett, Buck 65, The Super Friendz, The Handsome Family, Wax Mannequin, and Mike O'Neill.
In 2005, she collaborated with Ryan Bishops, Nathan Lawr, Kate Maki and Dale Murray in two national concert tours, A Midautumn Night's Dream and A Midwinter Night's Dream, which were reportedly inspired by Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue.
However, her lifestyle now includes time for other passions like visual art, scuba diving and underwater photography.
In 2017, Minnikin was awarded a grant through Artscenic to produce an outdoor, audio/visual collaboration with another Jeju artist, Sinji Jung.