I spent three years there and encountered great teachers who gave me enough stimulation to last me for the rest of my life - Josef Albers, painter; Buckminster Fuller, inventor; Max Dehn, the mathematician, and many others. Through them, I came to understand the total commitment required if one must be an artist.

Ruth Asawa

Categorized in : Me Great My Life Life

When you put a seed in the ground, it doesn't stop growing after eight hours. It keeps going every minute that it's in the earth. We, too, need to keep growing every moment of every day that we are on this earth.

eight growing needs

The best ideas come unexpectedly from a conversation or a common activity like watering the garden. These can get lost or slip away if not acted on when they occur.

garden common ideas

All my wire sculptures come from the same loop. And theres only one way to do it. The idea is to do it simply, and you end up with a shape.

sculpture wire ideas

Sometimes good comes through adversity. I would not be who I am today had it not been for the internment, and I like who I am.

adversity who-i-am today

Art is doing. Art deals directly with life. by Ruth Asawa

Art is doing. Art deals directly with life.

art-is deals art

Art can only be taught by artists. by Ruth Asawa

Art can only be taught by artists.

taught artist art

If a nonartist teaches a subject called art, it is nonart. by Ruth Asawa

If a nonartist teaches a subject called art, it is nonart.

teach subjects art

I laugh with the sun, and mist that tries so hard to seduce the m... by Ruth Asawa

I laugh with the sun, and mist that tries so hard to seduce the mountains.

mountains laugh hard sun

Sculpture is like farming. If you just keep at it, you can get qu... by Ruth Asawa

Sculpture is like farming. If you just keep at it, you can get quite a lot done.

like you farming done

Activism is wasteful. by Ruth Asawa

Activism is wasteful.

wasteful activism

I am able to take a wire line and go into the air and define the air without stealing from anyone. A line can enclose and define space while letting the air remain air.

without i-am go space

An artist is not special. An artist is an ordinary person who can take ordinary things and make them special.

person things artist special

We used to make patterns in the dirt, hanging our feet off the horse-drawn farm equipment. We made endless hourglass figures that I now see as the forms within forms in my crocheted wire sculptures.

farm hanging see feet

A lot of women wrote to me. Some wrote me long letters on the meaning of the circle and about mythology and about motherhood and the significance or the symbolism of the mermaid and the frogs and the turtles.

me women motherhood long

I used to unwind the wire tags that labeled the crates of vegetables and took the fine brass and steel wires and braided and twisted them together to make bracelets, rings, and figures.

fine steel vegetables together

With art, your motor sense should be developed at full capacity. by Ruth Asawa

With art, your motor sense should be developed at full capacity.

full sense your art

I had no intentions of going into sculpture but found that sculpture was just an extension of drawing.

going just sculpture drawing

I'm not so interested in the expression of something, but I'm more interested in what the material can do. And so that's why I keep exploring.

why more something expression

It wasn't stone. It wasn't welded steel. It wasn't traditional sculpture. They thought it was craft, or something else, but not art. They couldn't define it in the early Fifties when I was starting out.

stone something thought art

I am interested in finding solutions to problems. by Ruth Asawa

I am interested in finding solutions to problems.

finding interested i-am problems