Description

Everything She Touched recounts the incredible life of the American sculptor Ruth Asawa. This is the story of a woman who wielded imagination and hope in the face of intolerance and who transformed everything she touched into art. In this compelling biography, author Marilyn Chase brings Asawa s story to vivid life. She draws on Asawa s extensive archives and weaves together many voices–family, friends, teachers, and critics–to offer a complex and fascinating portrait of the artist. Born in California in 1926, Ruth Asawa grew from a farmer s daughter to a celebrated sculptor. She survived adolescence in the World War II Japanese-American internment camps and attended the groundbreaking art school at Black Mountain College. Asawa then went on to develop her signature hanging-wire sculptures, create iconic urban installations, revolutionize arts education in her adopted hometown of San Francisco, fight through lupus, and defy convention to nurture a multiracial family. – A richly visual volume with over 60 reproductions of Asawa s art and archival photos of her life (including portraits shot by her friend, the celebrated photographer Imogen Cunningham)
– Documents Asawa s transformative touch–most notably by turning wire – the material of the internment camp fences – into sculptures
– Author Marilyn Chase mined Asawa s letters, diaries, sketches, and photos and conducted interviews with those who knew her to tell this inspiring story. Ruth Asawa forged an unconventional path in everything she did–whether raising a multiracial family of six children, founding a high school dedicated to the arts, or pursuing her own practice independent of the New York art market. Her beloved fountains are now San Francisco icons, and her signature hanging-wire sculptures grace the MoMA, de Young, Getty, Whitney, and many more museums and galleries across America. – Ruth Asawa s remarkable life story offers inspiration to artists, art lovers, feminists, mothers, teachers, Asian Americans, history buffs, and anyone who loves a good underdog story.
– A perfect gift for those interested in Asian American culture and history
– Great for those who enjoyed Ninth Street Women: Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler: Five Painters and the Movement That Changed Modern Art by Mary Gabriel, Ruth Asawa: Life s Work by Tamara Schenkenberg, and Notes and Methods by Hilma af Klint