top of page
Search

Ruth Asawa & the Studio Art Group

WHAT I LEARNED FROM RUTH ASAWA

Ruth Asawa holds her wire sculptures. Asawa inspired the Studio Art Group to consider community and connectivity in the arts.

What I find inspiring about Ruth Asawa is that her passion for her practice was intrinsic to the way she interacted with the world. Ruth Asawa (1926–2013) is often described as a Japanese-American artist best known for her suspended wire sculptures. However, she was also a woman, educator, activist, gardener, cook, and mother who wove her art practice into the fabric of her daily life. Her values are reflected in the community projects and educational reforms she initiated.


Asawa’s wire sculptures demonstrate a highly skilled and masterful use of material. They feel exploratory, capturing air, light, and movement. Inspired by Mexican weaving traditions, her sculptures appear almost organic, as if holding moments of metamorphosis in suspension.


Life
In 1942, Asawa’s family was sent to internment camps following the U.S. government’s wartime incarceration policy. She initially intended to study teaching but was denied a position because of her Japanese heritage.

In 1946, Asawa enrolled at Black Mountain College, a progressive arts school in North Carolina. The teaching staff included former Bauhaus artists Josef and Anni Albers, as well as Buckminster Fuller.

In 1982, the Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts was established, born from her desire to improve arts education for children.

Dancers rehearsing with large paperfolds for Breathing, performed at School of the Arts (now Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts); 1989. Gelatin silver print, 8 × 10 in. (20.3 × 25.4 cm). Courtesy of the Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries. Photograph © Tom Wachs
Dancers rehearsing with large paperfolds for Breathing, performed at School of the Arts (now Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts); 1989. Gelatin silver print, 8 × 10 in. (20.3 × 25.4 cm). Courtesy of the Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries. Photograph © Tom Wachs

The Studio Art Group (SAG), in response to Asawa’s work and her retrospective at MoMA, created a collaborative painting using sumi ink. The collective work focused on the looping forms in Asawa’s sculptures. These black-and-white paintings were later compiled into a book that captured the experience and methodology of creative making within a community.


Resources: 






 
 
 

Comments

Our practice recognises the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation, as the owners and custodians of the places we work from. We recognise their sovereignty, culture and creativity. 

​

Copyright Samantha Sederof 

Samantha Sederof is a Melbourne Artist and ANZACATA & ACA registered Art Therapist & Counsellor providing services for children, adolescents and adults, family therapy, and the studio art group specialising in NDIS participants. Mental health and wellbeing is supported in a creative arts studio by using evidence based psychotherapeutic methods. 

SAMANTHA SEDEROF

bottom of page