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Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... Salem Main Library | J 921 Asawa, Ruth 2019 | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
"I was struck by how beautifully D'Aquino's renderings capture the spirit of Asawa's work." -- The New York Times Book Review
"Through this picture-book contribution, not only will Asawa's art reach a new audience, but her artistic practice will inspire the next generation of creative minds to express themselves with handmade art. A worthwhile addition to picture-book collections everywhere." -- Booklist
Ruth Asawa (1926-2013) was an influential and award-winning Japanese American sculptor and devoted activist who advocated tirelessly for arts education. A Life Made by Hand tells the story of this pioneering artist whose work is collected in major museums around the world.
Inspired by the world around her, Asawa saw beauty in the ordinary: the webs of spiders, wings of insects, and drops of water found in the garden on the farm where she spent her childhood. She studied at the historic Black Mountain College, an unusual school filled with brilliant thinkers like herself. "An artist," she said, "is an ordinary person who can take ordinary things and make them special."
Andrea D'Aquino's lush collages and engaging text celebrate Asawa's remarkable career, and collectively tell a story that will appeal to young readers and art lovers, and inspire them to, just as Ruth Asawa did, look closely at the world and create art with whatever is at hand.
Includes an activity for making a paper dragonfly and a page of teaching tools for parents and educators.
Author Notes
Andrea D'Aquino is an artist and author. Her previous books include an illustrated edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Once Upon a Piece of Paper . Her work appears in magazines and newspapers around the world. She lives in New York City.
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
K-Gr 3--In this picture book, author and illustrator D'Aquino tells the story of how Ruth Asawa became an artist. Raised in California, Asawa, along with her family, worked on a farm. Asawa was interested in nature and very good with her hands. She explored the shapes she observed in nature and began to re-create them out of wire and paper. On the weekends, Asawa attended Japanese school, where she learned calligraphy. She went to Black Mountain College and later traveled to Mexico, where she learned to weave wire into baskets from a local craftsman. Asawa began weaving and never stopped, creating amazing structures that can be found in museums today. D'Aquino's illustrations utilize charcoal, colored pencil, and collage with beautiful muted colors and whimsical designs. D'Aquino focuses on Asawa as an artist, but an author's note discusses Asawa's time in Japanese internment camps in the 1940s. The narrative focuses on Asawa's voyage as an artist at the family's bequest. Resources with more information are appended. D'Aquino also includes illustrated instructions on how to create a paper dragonfly, a great activity for storytime. VERDICT Recommended for primary school libraries and children's collections in public libraries. Also recommended for libraries with art collections.--Lia Carruthers, Gill St. Bernard's School, Gladstone, NJ
Publisher's Weekly Review
This introduction to the life of the Japanese-American artist Ruth Asawa (1926--2013) follows her early life growing up on a farm, her time at the legendary Black Mountain College, and the trip to Mexico where she learned to weave with wire. Colorful textural collage illustrations convey the way her creative practice was informed by the world around her ("She loved to draw forms in the dirt with her bare feet"). They are less successful in conveying the magic of her mesmerizing sculptural creations, though a small photo in the supplemental materials gives readers a glimpse of Asawa's work. These materials also offer context on Japanese-American internment--something Asawa experienced but which was left out of the narrative at the request of her estate. Instructions for a paper dragonfly close the book, encouraging readers to emulate this teacher, who "knew that the best way to learn is to use your hands." Ages 5--8. (Sept.)
Horn Book Review
D'Aquino offers young readers "the story of an artist you may have never heard of": Ruth Asawa (1926-2013), a Japanese American creator of nature-inspired wire sculptures. A third-person text effectively uses occasional imagined quotations from young Ruth ("Hello Spider. How did you figure out how to make your web?") to convey the sense of curiosity and wonder at the natural world that would later define this artist. Throughout the narrative, there's also an emphasis on the handmade-from a childhood spent on a farm (where "working with her hands was an ordinary thing to do") to her studies at Black Mountain College (where instructor Josef Albers "taught students to make art out of everything around them") to learning basket-weaving from a local craftsperson in Mexico, which would inspire her woven-wire sculptures. The book's illustrations, too, evoke the handmade; charcoal and colored-pencil drawings are combined with hand-painted and monoprinted paper in distinctive, naive-style collages. Back matter notes tell more about Asawa's life, including the fact that she and her family were interned during WWII, which is left out of the main text; a list of resources and a fitting "Make Your Own Paper Dragonfly" activity are also appended. Katrina Hedeen November/December 2019 p.108(c) Copyright 2019. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
The simplest objects can turn into art when you draw from life, nature, and personal passion.Fascinated by a snail's shell, gossamer dragonfly wings, and a spider's complex web, Ruth Asawa carefully observed tiny details around her family farm, her hands constantly busy with found objects such as wire and paper. Simple, straightforward text tells how she drew inspiration from Japanese calligraphy, dancers who bent their bodies into shapes, and craftsmen in Mexico who twisted wire baskets. With this last, Ruth had found her medium and her lifelong obsession. Her own wire structures became graceful, weightless works of art, looped structures that invited others to look closely and imagine what they see, providing inspiration to future young artists. Charcoal-and-colored-pencil drawings combine with hand-painted and monoprinted paper in a striking collage representation of Asawa's work. D'Aquino provides close-ups of the snail and dragonfly, a landscape layout of basket craftsmen, and a geometric kaleidoscope of squares layered upon squares, offering a variety of perspectives and media. An author's note explains her inspiration for the book and offers sobering facts about the Asawa family's internment in various campsfacts that are omitted from the story proper. Additional resources enable young artists to discover this artist's work for themselves and offer step-by-step instructions to create a folded paper dragonfly.This distinctive biography brims with artistic vision as it informs about a signature sculptor. (Picture book/biography. 5-8) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
As an artist experimenting with wire, Ruth Asawa discovered that a line can go anywhere, which led her to create a legacy of art, which includes fine, delicate wire sculptures on display at museums around the U.S. Despite garnering critical acclaim for her work, Asawa has remained little known, even in contemporary art circles. D'Aquino showcases how Asawa's curiosity and handiwork, set amidst charcoal and colored-pencil drawings and mixed-paper collages, carried her into adulthood, where her creative talent began to receive praise and attention. Through this picture-book contribution, not only will Asawa's art reach a new audience, but her artistic practice will inspire the next generation of creative minds to express themselves with handmade art. Back matter includes a resource section providing in-depth biographical information pertaining to Asawa's experience being incarcerated during the internment of Japanese Americans in WWII, plus a helpful bibliography and instructions for making crafts much like the ones Asawa created as a child. A worthwhile addition to picture-book collections everywhere.--Stephanie Harper Copyright 2019 Booklist