The art of Ruth Asawa

choko Life under Executive Order 9066

Drawing in the stables, / Disney in the grandstands, / art behind the wire.

Aug 20

choko The Art of Ruth Asawa

Behind the barbed wire, we learned to draw, tracing our freedom on a concrete floor.

choko Surviving the injustice of wartime internment

So cool how Ruth Asawa’s famous art actually started on a vegetable farm.

galleta Learn about Ruth Asawa's family history as truck farmers in California and how working on the vegetable farm influenced her famous art.

It’s wild that Ruth Asawa’s wire art started as toe drawings in farm dirt.

galleta A child's toe drawings in farm dirt inspired these famous woven wire sculptures.

BETA

choko Loop the wire to discover how Ruth Asawa turned simple lines into hanging sculptures.

Fun Fact

Rohwer Relocation Center: In this Arkansas internment camp, Ruth Asawa began her formal art training, learning from other interned Japanese-American artists.

Glossary

Executive Order 9066 (noun)
A 1942 US policy forcing over 120,000 people of Japanese descent, including Ruth Asawa, into WWII internment camps. This captivity unexpectedly sparked her artistic journey, showing how wonder can bloom in the darkest places.

Gossip

Which early life experience would shape your worldview the most?

Quiz

In what year was artist Ruth Asawa born?

choko In the internment camps, professional artists taught Asawa advanced drawing techniques.

Just learned the letter A is actually an upside-down ox head with horns.

galleta Discover the visual history of the letter A and how its shape traces back to an ancient ox head with horns.

Fun Fact

Internment camp art: Asawa first practiced professional drawing inside a converted horse stall at the Santa Anita racetrack during her World War II internment.

Glossary

internment (noun)
The state of being confined as a prisoner, especially for political or military reasons. In 1942, Ruth Asawa was interned at Rohwer Relocation Center, where she began her formal art training.

Quiz

What did Ruth Asawa's family do for a living before their forced internment?

Surviving the injustice of wartime internment

choko During World War II, Asawa and her family were forcibly relocated to Japanese-American internment camps.

Quiz

What was the name of the Arkansas internment camp where Ruth Asawa was held during World War II?

Quiz

Why was Ruth Asawa prevented from completing her degree at Milwaukee State Teachers College?

Quiz

What childhood chore on her family's farm first inspired Ruth Asawa to draw shapes in the dirt?

Quiz

Which professional artists taught Ruth Asawa drawing techniques while she was interned at Santa Anita?