When I bought this page of commemorative stamps in 2020, I didn't know anything about the featured artist. I just now finished Marilyn Chase's biography, "Everything She Touched: Life of Ruth Asawa," and am blown away by the story of the artist who created these fascinating sculptures. Ruth Asawa was born in 1926, the middle of seven children in a farming family in rural Los Angeles County. As citizens of Japanese ancestry, the young artist Ruth and her family were taken from their home and sent to internment camps for the duration of WWII. Even while being held for weeks in the old horse stalls at the Santa Anita Racetrack awaiting their final train ride to the camps, Ruth managed to take drawing lessons from several Disney artists who were also interned there! After spending her high school years in an Arkansas camp, Ruth's Quaker church sponsored her training in Wisconsin to be an art teacher. Sadly, even though she completed the coursework, she was unable to find employment in that state due to ongoing prejudice against Japanese Americans. Disappointed but never discouraged, Ruth accepted a friend's invitation to join her for summer art classes at the Black Mountain College in North Carolina. It turned out to be another fortuitous turn that would change her life. Now legendary, Black Mountain College was a hotbed for artists and thinkers like Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly, Jacob Lawrence, Buckminster Fuller, John Cage and Merce Cunningham. Ruth stayed at Black Mountain for 3 years, studying under the great Bauhaus artists Josef and Anni Albers, who had themselves fled the persecution of artists and intellectuals of Hitler's Germany. While she was at Black Mountain, Ruth took several trips to Mexico where she met artists such as Diego Rivera as well as the artisans who weave intricate metal wire baskets. It was here that Ruth learned the technique that would be the medium for her abstract sculptures. Weaving metal wire is not an easy task and her fingertips were often covered with Bandaids! Many people have drawn the parallel between the barbed wire fences of the internment camps transforming into the beautiful wire mesh of her sculptures and while I don't believe that it was a conscious decision on her part, it's an impressive impression. Needless to say, after reading the book, I was excited to see the above 2 pieces that are currently on display at the Seattle Art Museum. Even though she did not become an art teacher herself, in the end Ruth left an impressive legacy in arts education with the establishment of The Ruth Asawa School of the Arts, a public magnet high school in San Francisco. She also left several public art creations in San Francisco, the last of which was the landscape design for a Garden of Remembrance featuring 10 large boulders, one for each of the Japanese internment camps.
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As I continue to listen to The Saucer Life podcast, I remembered this comic book I have held onto since I was a kid in the 60's. I believe it was purchased by my older brother, but it made a big impression on me: UFO FLYING SAUCERS! Where do they come from - What do they want? All valid questions. Being from Michigan, I was especially interested in the story about the UFO sightings in Dexter and Hillsdale in 1966. Below is the comic book version. The Saucer Life's Aaron Gulyas tells the tale on a live episode of the podcast. His slides contain some of the sketches done by the Hillsdale college students describing the "quilted surface" of the saucers. Note the mention of "swamp" (which is a basic description of just about anywhere in Michigan.) That's right, it's heading for the SWAMP! OK- it was swamp gas all along. Sure, sure... On my reading list is a book entitled "Swamp Gas, My Ass" by ex-Patterson-Wright Air Force Base employee Raymond Szymanski which covers "the extraordinary true story of two highly decorated U. S. Air Force fighter-interceptor pilots, fully enmeshed in America’s hidden military history. Together they intercepted the world famous “1966 Michigan Swamp Gas UFO” in supersonic F-106 jets – a history changing story, denied by the government, told here for the very first time." Patterson-Wright AFB looms large in UFO legend, as it supposedly contains the remains from the Roswell crash in secret "Hanger 18." I was actually at the National Air Force Museum at Patt-Wright AFB last summer, before I knew any of this. If only I had known we might have been able to do some hands on research. Paul K, at the National Air Force Museum at Wright Patterson, perhaps heading out to look for the aliens? Is the truth still out there???
Also, what part of "do not touch the suit" do you not understand? (Once a museum guard, unfortunately, always a museum guard!) My ears have been abducted by Aaron Gulyas' podcast "The Saucer Life" ever since I discovered it last week. I never really looked at the UFO phenomenon through the lens of cold war anxiety, but indeed modern saucer sighting reports began in the late 1940's just a few years after the US dropped the first atomic bombs on Japan. The aliens in most of the stories have come to earth with the message that we need to abandon nuclear weapons and learn to live together in peace. Interestingly several of these early modern encounters were reported here in Washington state - private pilot Kenneth A Arnold's sighting of saucers by Mt Rainier in 1947 and the Maury Island Incident with the first mention of The Men in Black, those threatening people who show up after the sighting and tell you to never talk about it! Of course there are those who consider UFOs to be secret military aircrafts and it's not like Boeing wasn't Seattle's biggest industry, but I'm sure that's just a coincidence.
Yeah, it's been a minute since I wrote a blog entry, but, wait, I didn't even have a blog on here 'til just now, but you know what I mean. 😄
Intro and update: Who am I? A lifelong artist, they say I started drawing on the walls at the age of 1. Late to the cave art game or early to the graffiti game, you decide. I am from Muskegon, Michigan, base of the little finger for all you gander landers. Where am I? The Fern Forest Studio, a garage converted into an art studio, since 1998 ~ woah, that's 25 years- in the State of Washington (you always have to say that "state" part because, well, you know.) What am I doing?? This summer's to do list includes cleaning out a bunch of stuff from the studio. Do you ever save things because you "might do something with them someday" ? Yeah, me too, x 25 years. I'm also developing more materials to accompany my Fern Forest Tarot Deck. A lot of people have requested more information on how to use the cards, and I'm happy to share what I know. I'm also thrilled to report that a children's picture book that I illustrated will be published this fall- more details to come on that. I hope that this finds you having a good day. Take care, Rebecca |
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