Nature, Tied Wire and Later Sculpture, 1960s-1990s
“Nature is my teacher, and I have used materials that are a product of our twentieth century to study her growth patterns.” —Ruth Asawa
In 1962 a gift of a dried desert plant from Death Valley given to Asawa inspired her to pursue a new direction in her sculpture. Drawing the plant, she found “its intricacy . . . made it impossible,” and instead turned to wire, working with bundles and spools that she manipulated into complex branches and other botanical forms, as seen in Untitled (S.184, Hanging Tied-Wire, Single-Stem, Multi-Branched Form Based on Nature), ca. 1962. Asawa went on to make “tied-wire” sculptures over the course of the decade and beyond. As she described, these works “take an impersonal material like wire, which is very hard, and then make it into a gentle thing that’s natural looking so that you can take an abstract piece of wire and turn it into a plant. And I like that transition from hard to soft.”
Moreover, some of Asawa’s tied-wire works often began with a floral, starlike, or geometric center. As she worked, and the form grew progressively outward, she both responded to the properties of her medium in following “what the wire dictates” and mirrored patterns in the natural world. Her hanging and wall-mounted sculpture reinvigorated her drawing, which like her works in wire explored new possibilities in geometric designs, airy blooms, and branching tree-like patterns.
Throughout the 1970s and beyond, Asawa continued “to explore the limits of materials, growth, and form by making sculpture with wire.” As she created new variations of looped- and tied-wire compositions, some closed and some open, some suspended from above and others wall-mounted, she also furthered her material exploration of resin and experimented with colored glass.