Everything She Touched

Everything She Touched recounts the incredible life of the American sculptor Ruth Asawa.This is the story of a woman who wielded imagination and hope in the face of intolerance and who transformed everything she touched into art. In this compelling biography, author Marilyn Chase brings Asawa's story to vivid life. She draws on Asawa's extensive archives and weaves together many voices-family, friends, teachers, and critics-to offer a complex and fascinating portrait of the artist.Born in California in 1926, Ruth Asawa grew from a farmer's daughter to a celebrated sculptor. She survived adolescence in the World War II Japanese-American internment camps and attended the groundbreaking art school at Black Mountain College. Asawa then went on to develop her signature hanging-wire sculptures, create iconic urban installations, revolutionize arts education in her adopted hometown of San Francisco, fight through lupus, and defy convention to nurture a multiracial family.• A richly visual volume with over 60 reproductions of Asawa's art and archival photos of her life (including portraits shot by her friend, the celebrated photographer Imogen Cunningham)• Documents Asawa's transformative touch-most notably by turning the barbed wire of prison camps into wire sculptures of astonishing power and delicacy• Author Marilyn Chase mined Asawa's letters, diaries, sketches, and photos and conducted interviews with those who knew her to tell this inspiring story.Ruth Asawa forged an unconventional path in everything she did-whether raising a multiracial family of six children, founding a high school dedicated to the arts, or pursuing her own practice independent of the New York art market.Her beloved fountains are now San Francisco icons, and her signature hanging-wire sculptures grace the MoMA, de Young, Getty, Whitney, and many more museums and galleries across America.• Ruth Asawa's remarkable life story offers inspiration to artists, art lovers, feminists, mothers, teachers, Asian Americans, history buffs, and anyone who loves a good underdog story.• A perfect gift for those interested in Asian American culture and history• Great for those who enjoyed Ninth Street Women: Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler: Five Painters and the Movement That Changed Modern Art by Mary Gabriel, Ruth Asawa: Life's Work by Tamara Schenkenberg, and Notes and Methods by Hilma af Klint

"Tempting as it is to view Asawa's life as an artistic rags-to-riches parable, the story is far more shaded and nuanced. That rich narrative emerges in a scrupulously researched and lucidly written new book Everything She Touched: The Life of Ruth Asawa by Marilyn Chase." --San Francisco Chronicle, "A fitting homage to this remarkable woman." --The Wall Street Journal, "Chase follows Asawa's remarkable journey from an artist barely known outside of the Bay Area to an internationally acclaimed figure." --ARTnews, "I can't remember being more inspired by an artist's biography." --Austin Kleon, author of Keep Going and Steal Like an Artist, "Marilyn Chase fascinates readers with the varied chapters of Ruth Asawa's engrossing life including her adolescence spent in a Japanese internment camp, her work as an art teacher, her role in a multiracial family raising six children, her friendships with artists like photographer Imogen Cunningham, and her reverence for Mexican basket makers, who provided the inspiration for her unique wire sculptures." --Smithsonian

Marilyn Chase is a journalist and teacher, and the author of The Barbary Plague: The Black Death in Victorian San Francisco. She lives in San Francisco.