Everything She Touched - by Marilyn Chase

About the Book

"Now in paperback. The definitive biography and inspiring story of American sculptor Ruth Asawa"--

Book Synopsis

Now in paperback! The definitive biography and inspiring story of American sculptor Ruth Asawa.

"A fitting homage to this remarkable woman." --The Wall Street Journal

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. She 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.

• This richly visual volume is illustrated with over 70 reproductions of Asawa's art and archival photos of her life, including portraits shot by celebrated photographer Imogen Cunningham.
• It documents Asawa's transformative touch, most notably the way she turned wire--the material of the internment camp fences--into sculptures.
• Additions to the paperback: a foreword by Jonathan Laib, director of the David Zwirner Gallery, and an author's note that charts the continued rise of Asawa's star in the art world and beyond.

Ruth Asawa forged an unconventional path in everything she did. 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. Everything She Touched invites us to step into Asawa's story so "we can admire the magic of her sculpture and beauty as a person." (Harry S. Parker III, former director of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco)

INSPIRING LIFE STORY: By exploring both Asawa's work and her life, Chase weaves a captivating tale of courage, vision, and resilience. Her remarkable story offers inspiration to artists and art lovers of every generation.

WORLD-RENOWNED ARTIST: Ruth Asawa (1926-2013) is a celebrated and internationally recognized artist best known for her hand-looped and tied-wire sculptures. Today, her work has found a home in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, and the de Young Museum in San Francisco.

NEW CONTENT: Since this biography's original publication in 2020, Ruth Asawa's art has been even more widely celebrated and exhibited. The paperback edition incorporates a new foreword and author's note, bringing the book up to date with the latest developments in this exceptional artist's legacy.

Perfect for:

• Artists and art students
• Fans of contemporary sculpture
• Anyone interested in Asian American culture and history
• Feminists, mothers, teachers, and history buffs
• Readers of art biographies and retrospectives such as Ruth Asawa: Life's Work, The Art of Feminism, and Ninth Street Women: Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler: Five Painters and the Movement That Changed Modern Art

Review Quotes

"Everything She Touched reveals the emotional life and personal trials of a social pathbreaker and civic leader. Author Marilyn Chase connects the barbed wire and dispossession of Asawa's early life to the artist's transformative approach to spooled metal, and intimately conveys the teeming creative life inside her home studio as it filled with six children. The most pronounced through line is Asawa's deliberately interwoven family and art practice." --KQED Arts

"A fitting homage to this remarkable woman." --The Wall Street Journal

"Art world recognition for Ruth Asawa keeps climbing higher and, now, Everything She Touched by Marilyn Chase arrives to tell Asawa's amazing life story. Full of documents and fantastic photos--especially those by Imogen Cunningham--we can admire the magic of her sculpture and beauty as a person." --Harry S. Parker III, former director of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

"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

"Ruth Asawa's vision shaped the artistic landscapes of public and private spaces, but it is her enduring legacy of life, love, and family that truly inspires. Through the prisms of grief and glory, Chase weaves Asawa's unique history into a compelling and sensitive portrait of a genius whose beauty would not be denied." --Vivienne Schiffer, author of Camp Nine and producer and co-director of Relocation, Arkansas: Aftermath of Incarceration

"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

"Thoroughly researched and engaging, Everything She Touched gives context to the tumultuous times Ruth Asawa lived through and the forces that shaped her artistic vision and her generous unassuming spirit. On so many levels, Marilyn Chase's book made me admire Ruth Asawa even more than I did already." --Delphine Hirasuna, author of The Art of Gaman: Arts and Crafts from the Japanese American Internment Camps, 1942-1946

"Undulating in form and almost dreamy in effect, the famous lantern-like sculptures of Ruth Asawa have been recognizable for decades. But Asawa's life is as rich in detail and twisting in path as any one of these designs, as this new biography by Marilyn Chase makes clear." --Architectural Digest online

About the Author

Marilyn Chase is an author, journalist, and teacher. She worked for over two decades as a reporter and columnist at the Wall Street Journal and taught journalism to graduate students at the University of California, Berkeley, and Stanford. Her previous books include The Barbary Plague: The Black Death in Victorian San Francisco. She lives in San Francisco with her family.