Born on January 24, 1926 in Norwalk, California, Ruth Asawa was the fourth of seven children born to Japanese immigrants. When World War II[1] broke out, her father was arrested by the FBI and interned in a camp in New Mexico. Ruth and the rest of her family were interned at the Santa Anita Racetrack, then Rohwer War Relocation Center in Arkansas. She would not see her father for six years. After spending 18 months in Arkansas, she enrolled at the Milwaukee State Teaching College with the intention of becoming an art teacher. She was unable to complete her degree because she could not get hired anywhere for the prerequisite practice teaching that was required.
During this time, on a vacation to Mexico, Asawa met Cuban interior designer Clara Porset, who told her about Black Mountain College in North Carolina. Asawa changed career paths when she was accepted to this progressive and avant-garde school. She studied under artist Josef Albert for three years. Asawa began working with wire, first crocheting baskets similar to a technique she learned while in Mexico, and later moving to biomorphic forms that hung from the ceiling. She met and married architect Albert Lanier, and the couple moved to San Francisco in 1949. Asawa built a reputation for her wire sculptures and fountains, leading to commissions for large scale sculptures for both public and commercial spaces. In 1968, she unveiled the mermaid fountain that is still in Ghirardelli Square[2]. It was met with criticism: the landscape architect who designed the waterfront space called it a suburban lawn ornament. But citizens rallied to have it stay, and it did. For the Union Square fountain that is just off the Square, she had 200 schoolchildren mold hundreds of images of San Francisco in dough, which were then cast in iron. It is amazing.
As an ardent advocate of art education, Asawa was the driving force behind the San Francisco School of the Arts, an audition-based alternative high school located in the Laguna Honda district. Opened in 1982, the school was renamed The Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts in 2010.
Asawa’s last public commission was in 2002 for San Francisco State University. The Garden of Remembrancememorializes the Japanese Americans interned during World War II[3].
Asawa lived with Lanier and their six children in Noe Valley[4]. She died in 2013 at the age of 87. In 2020, the US Postal Service honored her by issuing a set of postage stamps with her more famous works of art.
[1] World War II: https://thesanfranciscophoenix.com/?p=4222
[2] Ghiradelli Square: see story coming February 24th
[3] Japanese Internment: https://thesanfranciscophoenix.com/?p=3419
[4] Noe Valley: https://thesanfranciscophoenix.com/?p=3256
