Ruth Asawa Honored with USPS Stamp #ArtTuesday

Ethel Kessler has been designing USPS stamps for over two decades. Her newest stamp honors Japanese-American Ruth Asawa. Here’s more from Voices in Contemporary Art:

Asawa was born in a Los Angeles suburb in 1926. During World War II, when Asawa was just 16, she was sent to Santa Anita Assembly Center, an internment camp for Japanese-Americans outside of Pasadena, California. It was there where she encountered her first art training, mentored by Disney animators who were also forced into internment. She went on to study at Black Mountain College where she became enamored with forming lines. The best way to do this, she believed, was with wire. A trip to Mexico drove home this idea as she observed women weaving baskets out of fine wire. She began to create the delicate, ephemeral-looking sculptures that we now associate her with. …Now, ten of these sculptures are pictured on US postage stamps, accompanied by a photo of Asawa and a sketch.

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