Through Line: Ruth Asawa Exhibition

These sketches remind us that she grew up on a farm and maintained a vegetable garden her whole life. The patterns of roots and seeds were part of her visual vocabulary.

I am fascinated by the connection between drawing and writing and the way they are both connected to literacy.  Ruth’s sketch books are a kind of journal in which she records her encounters with the world around her, with the city of San Francisco, with her garden and her vegetables, and with her friends and family.
​
It snowed while we were in the exhibit, so I have to include this photo of me, my two daughters and good friends, Lori and Calliope George, on one of the Whitney’s balconies.

This January I went to New York to see the Ruth Asawa exhibit at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

​The exhibit was especially exciting because of the unusual focus. Asawa is mainly known for her wire sculptures, but this exhibit contained just one wire sculpture, concentrating instead on her drawings and prints. Asawa was prolific. She drew every day. The exhibit shows how all of her artwork is connected, integrated, part of the same practice.​

This drawing, which is really quite small, reminds me of the hills around San Francisco. I grew up in Sacramento and was always dazzled by these views as we approached the Bay Area on special trips. Of course, Asawa spent her adult life in the Bay Area. You can see her love of complex patterns that turn and twist.