Line and Wire - Artist Research & Project Update

Artist Research - Ruth Asawa

Photo and biographical information credited to http://ruthasawa.com/life/

Biographical Information:

Ruth Asawa was the daughter of Japanese immigrants, born in Norwalk California in 1926. She lived through the Japanese American Internment during WW II and was interned first in 1942 at a temporary interment center in at the Santa Anita racetrack, after which she was transferred to the Rohwer War Relocation Center in Arkansas.

Her interest in art began at an early age and she was lucky enough to have teachers early on that encouraged her to pursue her own artwork. This led to her winning her first prize in an school arts competition in 1939 at the age of 13. She completed high school at the internment center and although she was prohibited from attending her college of choice in California due to the continuing war, she was able to attend the Milwaukee state teachers college with the goal of becoming an art teacher. She was concerned about her safety working in public schools, however, due to the lingering resentments from the war, and decided to instead focus on her art.

From 1982-2010 she focused her energies on creating a public school for the arts in San Francisco and it was later renamed the Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts. She died of natural causes, in her sleep, at home on August 6, 2013.

Inspiration and Connection to my work

I am drawn to Ruth’s work because she draws a lot of her inspiration from natural form and objects. I too find myself to be most interested in that natural work and figuring out how to best translate it into my own artistic vision. Ruth described her own work as “A woven mesh, not unlike medieval mail. A continuous piece of wire, forms envelop inner forms, yet all forms are visible (transparent). The shadow will reveal an exact image of the object.” The vision and creativity that it takes to develop something like that is both inspiring and intimidating. I hope to be able to find a path that will allow me to create work as beautiful and complex as her.

Part of what inspires me the most about her is her educational philosophy as it relates to art. “A child can learn something about color, about design, and about observing objects in nature. If you do that, you grow into a greater awareness of things around you. Art will make people better, more highly skilled in thinking and improving whatever business one goes into, or whatever occupation. It makes a person broader.” (http://ruthasawa.com/life) This teaching philosophy almost perfectly describes the reason I chose to branch out from my career as a biology professor and explore the arts in more detail.

Her ability to translate her 2-D drawings into 3-D sculptures really inspires me as does her ability to really show the shape and form but to still develop pieces that have real substance and density is something I’d very much like to learn to do.

http://ruthasawa.com/art

Line Wire Representational Sculpture Progress Update

Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the small group critique for this project due to a covid scare, but I am hoping to get some feedback this week as I continue working. I spent a lot of time working on methods that would allow me to create a stable structure and that would give me a shape that best represents the pumpkins that I am trying to represent in this project. After quite a bit of trial and error, I found that this method works the best.

I start with a 16 gauge wire and wrap it around a cylinder that will give me approximately the size of pumpkin I am looking for. The ends are wrapped around one side of the looped wire to secure them together and the rings are then fanned out into a circle around the center binding. Additional 16 gauge wire is used to anchor the individual rings to one another, adding additional stability to the structure but also providing a strong contour line around the widest part of the pumpkin body. Thinner 22 gauge wire was then used to create a mesh-like appearance between each of the rings, increasing the feeling of substance and defining the overall shape of the pumpkin.

Have two more pumpkins to make (each slightly smaller than the first). They will then need to be attached to one another in a stacked structure. I also still need to consider how I plan to make the stem that will be on the top of the smallest of the pumpkins. I am also considering whether I need to make the pattern with the 22 gauge wire a little denser, or maybe add some vertical lines to increase the overall opacity of the sculpture. While I do really like the overall feel of the existing design, I’m not sure it’s reading “pumpkin” as much as I would like.