Line, color, shape, texture, and composition. These are all tools that artists may use in their two-dimensional work to create and discover new relationships on the page. These elements build a new reality for the artist, much as space, attention, posture, and breath create the reality of awareness, however ephemeral, for a practitioner. Ruth Asawa was a master experimenter with all of these artistic elements. She worked in printmaking, drawing, painting, and folded paper to discover new ways to express forms in her environment as well as repetitive sequences or patterns in new and lively ways. Although not a Buddhist per se, her work is reminiscent of the repetition and exploration of the seeker in meditative exploration.
What I admire most about artists is their ability to see novelty before or during the art-making processes. This is something I am now experimenting with in my own return to 2D art making, with pastel and paint on paper. I make quick, intuitive drawings with no preconceived plan. Ruth Asawa studied form and objects in her environment, as well as the simplest items such as laundry bags, labels, plant life. From these, she interpreted new repetitive lines or texture-based art that bring new life to an ordinary scene or item. Meditation has its parallels to creative work, though art brings the invisible into visibility, and meditation brings the visible into inexpressible planes.
As the mother of six children Asawa, undoubtable spent much time at home, raising them, and immersing them in art as well. Her experience was not that of a separate, rarified artist, but one joined with family and community. She left behind a number of well-loved public art works in San Francisco and the full scope of her legacy is now on show at SF MOMA, soon traveling to Europe as well.
I recently visited the Storm King Art Center in upstate New York, and, although grand in scale, many of the pieces reminded me of Asawa’s work: bold color, daring shapes, and the juxtaposition of materials in new and surprising ways. Viewing art in person, whether 2D or 3D is incomparable to seeing it online or in print. There is simply no replacing the embodied, visceral experience of being with art, seeing the light play on its surfaces, and abiding, however fleetingly, in relation to its size, volume, and presence with one’s own human body. Light cannot be replicated in print, especially for two dimensional artworks: painting, photography, and drawing depend upon natural light for their full expression. Even sculpture, its surfaces, and interdependent volumetric shapes need light and shadow to fully express themselves.
Some of Asawa’s more colorful abstract drawing and prints feel childlike—not childish—wherein children in their beginner’s mind approach are not afraid to be bold in placing color and shape down and not even needing to use the whole page or make it look “complete.” Again, this is a quality I am looking to explore in my own artwork, as I return to art-making, hopefully in a fresher way than when I was a professional artist.
One of the many qualities of Asawa’s works I admire is the courage and bold experimentation she employed to discover new territory. Her large scale black and white paper folded sculptures evoke origami but extend far beyond a mere animal representation or ode to the fashion of the 1960s. They reference fashion, yes, but also mycelium, ferns, and patterns in nature and geology. She took this to a full expression in her piece Origami Fountains, in Japantown in 1982.
San Francisco was and indeed is blessed to have Asawa’s work placed in and around the city, as her Japanese American heritage art beautifies and beckons visitors and resident alike. Her children uphold this legacy by preserving and helping curate exhibitions, and the next stops on the tour of this large retrospective will be New York City, Bilbao in Spain, and Switzerland in 2025–26.
I cannot say whether Asawa’s art-making processes were meditative in nature for her, but many of the results have the effect of soothing, relaxing, and inspiring awe in the viewer. They also inspire curiosity and a sense of accessibility to art-making itself, as her materials were sometimes quite simple, readily available, and creatively used ordinary materials in new ways. I maintain that the creative process for each individual and type of artist is often a journey into nonverbal, unworded, and intuitive spaces of discovery. As such, they are available to all—not only for the wealthy, privileged, or those with abundant leisure time. Asawa led a charmed life in some ways, belonging to a vibrant and supportive artistic community and family, yet hailing from a farming family, and enduring internment in Japapese American camps in the 1940s. Ironically, she expressed how she began her art explorations in the camp, learning from comic illustrators and others, who inspired her to express her own artistic voice.
Anyone can access simple materials to express themselves in a notebook or drawing pad, finding even moments of time between work and family, to express the ineffable nature of their imagination—for the sole purpose of experimentation, discovery, and joy. Like the art of meditation, which involves letting go while remaining present, creative expression involves a courage to leap into the unknown, and boldly seek what lies beneath or inside of the ordinary.
See more
Ruth Asawa (Wikipedia)
Related features from BDG
Living Lines: Tracing a Path Between Past and Present in Artistic Creation Across Cultures
From Monk to Vajrayana Dharma Artist: The Transformation of Zhang Daqian at Dunhuang
Living Playfully: Glimpses into a Buddhist Artist’s Training and Practice
Art as a Contemplative Exploration of Reality – Recent Works from Visionary Laurie Anderson
Book Review: In the Present Moment: Buddhism, Contemporary Art, and Social Practice
Art, Culture, and Healing the World: A Conversation with Haema Sivanesan
