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

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.

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.

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

Fun Fact

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

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

choko Surviving the injustice of wartime internment

choko The Art of Ruth Asawa

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

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

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

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.

Surviving the injustice of wartime internment

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