Ruth Asawa Project

 

A student's peppermint tree

Ruth Asawa is an artist whom I knew almost nothing about before teaching my Wonder Women of Art unit. She was a Japanese American who was held in an Internment Camp during World War II. (Dorothea Lange and Ansel Adams from our fall Photography unity documented these camps). She was a student in the historic art hot spot: Black Mountain College where she learned form and worked beside greats such as Josef Albers and Buckminster Fuller. One day in Mexico, Ruth saw a man making wire baskets in the market place, and asked him to show her how. She'd spend the rest of her life making sculptures, many of which were made from the crocheted wire technique. She settled in San Fransisco with her architect-husband and their six children, there are many sculptures that she designed from folded paper that was later cast in bronze. I wish I had kept my eyes peeled for her sculptures when I was in San Fran last summer. I also love how Ruth was a passionate educator and community advocate for the arts.

My students had the task of using any kind of wire they wanted to use. I got bags of Twistees and rolls of copper and aluminum wire, but most students used fuzzy craft sticks (pipe cleaners). They made pumpkins, candles, stars, and water fountains by bending the wire and making something linear into three demential forms.

Wire Quilt Squares Project

Our Wonder Women of Art unit has taken us to the Germany in the 1600's with Maria Sibylla Merian, to Mexico in the 1900's with Frida Kahlo, to the ladies living a state away in Alabama: The Quilters of Gees Bend. Self taught artists are still artists, and functional art is still art. This project is leading into a craft unit and we'll have to talk about the difference and overlap between art and craft. The Quilters in Gees bend are neighbors, family, and friends who made quilts out of necessity before they were discovered and made famous. Their fabric arrangements of colors and shapes hold their own in galleries of modernist paintings. So after watching videos and having discussions about the purpose and aesthetic of these famous quilts, we began to make our own squares. I offered my students wire, Twistees, pipe cleaners, beads, upholstery fabric, wall paper, buttons, wood and clay mosaic tiles.

Instead of making a large class quilt, students bound four of their own squares to make small 8"X8" wall hangings. One student (in the tradition of quilt making) made one for her future niece, who will be for next month. I love seeing how students use a variety of materials to fill an empty square.