We're All Ears :: Encapsulated Potential

I hope you found something intriguing about the graceful curving forms of Ruth Asawa's beautiful wire work. For me the challenge was trying to miniaturize these forms and to get the sense of the shape within the shape that her wire sculptures depicted.

I found this short video about the experience of seeing one of these forms on display and how we are meant to interact with these sculptures in a way that was different than what most had known about sculpture up to the mid-century when she was creating them. The brief video only shows one piece, but she intended for them to be shown together, like the picture above, where the shapes play off one another and the shadows they create are part of a sort of living exhibit. The biomorphic designs were built with very common materials - copper, brass, steel wire - that she elevated to something staggeringly beautiful. Asawa also believed that art should be accessible, which is why the permanent exhibition of her work is in a space that does not charge people to see them, and also that art is something that you do every single day. I love this sensibility and try to bring that to my own art projects.

So I started with the wire. I was using 16 gauge steel wire for the base and made a couple of contenders to replicate her shapes. I also pulled out some metal beads that I thought would work for the enveloped orbs that are common to her work. I think that I would go back and try to do this with other metal colors, as that is the only color in her work.

Now I don't know how to crochet with wire, but that would be something. Ruth learned these techniques in Mexico when she worked with local craftspeople who made baskets like this, but she came back and transformed the craft into art. Can you imagine some crochet orb earrings like this? I think that would be incredibly dramatic! What I decided to do was cage a bead with simple wire wrapping. I found these fluted beads that worked well because the grooves could be used to trap the bead in the wiring, giving it a sense of floating inside the shape. I like a little bit of movement, and just a hint of bling to catch the light, so I added some smalller fluted beads and just a little Swarovski crystal that helped to reinforce the cascading, morphing shapes.

There is a lot of mystery with Ruth Asawa's art. I can't fathom how she did all of these, especially getting those bubbles suspended within. So I called these "Mystery Within" as her art hints at seed pods and all the encapsulated potential.

I am curious to see how this art influenced your design.

We're All Ears :: May Inspiration :: Wire Forms

I love the Google Doodle. 

I find out the most intriguing things through it. 

The Google Doodle on May 1, 2019 was all about artist Ruth Asawa. She was a prolific Japanese-American artist of the mid-20th century after World War II. She was known for her commitment to art in all forms and especially art education in the San Francisco Bay area. I was most intrigued by her large wire form sculptures.

By Angel2u4now - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=63428437

Ruth was sent to an internment camp during WWII. But instead of cursing that experience she actually credited that experience for pushing her down the path of art when she met three Disney animators also detained there who taught her how to draw. After that time she attended university in Milwaukee to become an art teacher, until she learned that no school district in Wisconsin would offer her a teaching position. Eventually she ended up at the Black Mountain College near Asheville, NC to study with great artists like Joseph Albers. But a trip to Mexico in 1947 really set her down the path of working with wire using an ancient technique for weaving baskets.

I quite love the forms that she created. The undulating shapes are at once solid and airy. They are also quite sinuous and organic, like giant alien pods or some sort of unknown sea creature. The hidden-in-plain-sight internal forms that are suspended within recall mothers and children and hint at protection and love. The shadows that they cast are mesmerizing. And the fact that she used common materials like copper, brass and steel wire - letting those metal colors shine - transforming them into something spectacular with just her hands and a pair of pliers is incredible.

Although Ruth did a lot of different art forms, I thought that we could use these specific pieces of art for our inspiration. Consider this quote from Ruth Asawa:

“I was interested in it because of the economy of a line, making something in space, enclosing it without blocking it out. It’s still transparent. I realized that if I was going to make these forms, which interlock and interweave, it can only be done with a line because a line can go anywhere.”

 So go forth and find these undulating shapes in your bead stash, play with the shapes evoked, break out your wire and make some statement earrings that honor the life and work of the incomparable Ruth Asawa.

See you on May 17th for the reveal!