“The most important thing is the doing—integrating your life and your work and everything together.” -Ruth Asawa I had the great gift of going to an exhibit of Ruth Asawa’s work at The Whitney in New York recently. As I wondered the big white rooms and stared at her drawings, that stemmed from her noticing, and sometimes her children’s gifts, that also led to her sculpture, I was so heartened by the organic chaos of it all. This was an artist with a distinct and evolving point of view. This was an artist with a real gift for isolating a visual question and exploring it with aplomb. This was an artist with
Making Art feels like the lover I continually reject or the medicine I refuse to take and I dont really know why. every time i'm called to it again, it's like my soul remembers that it wants this so bad it can taste it, but I keep telling her it's impossible or off-limits for no good reason at all. THanks for another calIing up of this in me.
Making art, even with clumsy hands, helps us to escape from a world that is spinning out of control. Thank you for encouraging those of us who can barely draw a straight line.
Ruth Asawa....swooning here. I've written about her, too, being completely impressed with her work. The more research I did, the more I came to admire her as a person who gave much time and energy and expertise to her community, particularly children. She's was an exemplary artist, citizen, human.
The MacArthur fellow Lynda Barry, a cartoonist and scholar, teaches at maybe Wisconsin, but her passion and research is with kids she describes as being at the age before drawing, writing, and thinking are at all separated.
Part of her focus with adult students and adults more broadly is to encourage such a reintegration. It involves no talent whatsoever and not very much time.
Her first book of this type was called, I think, Syllabus. Any reader who wants to bring drawing, not expert drawing but anyone-can-do-it drawing, back into her life, check it out.
I did daily journaling in her style for several journals worth of time.
I also often have some art stuff going, even if sometimes it is studying a photograph for how I would paint it.
Oh oh oh, I LOVE that you wrote about Ruth Asawa. I saw this exhibit too... on a surprise trip to NYC, after wandering the High Line with a friend, we descended and were at the Whitney, and I (Australian Canadian) was like, I think I've heard of it, shall we go in? And this exhibit just made my whole trip. I loved encountering her work, especially how truly integrated it was with her life as a mother and a member of a community. I hope we see more artists like Ruth elevated in this way, because I'm so sick of bowing at the pedestal of the ruthless selfish men who created things by insisting everyone else make space for them, and do all the other labour to support their life, so they could make their art. It's this hero mythology that continually tilts the world out of balance, and mocks the greatest art of all which is the art of care. Post-script: I'm reading Beth Pickens on Make Your Art No Matter What... If you aren't already friends, Courtney, I feel like you'd love her. I do. She's the voice I need in my head.
I find mothering itself intensely creative, even as it sometimes has kept me from easily creating other things. I mean, I MADE THEM. But also, like everything I’ve ever made they have their own genius they’re bringing into manifestation which sometimes I just have to get out of the way of.
For what it’s worth, creativity and children live in the same “house”, the same realm of life, in astrology. They both are vehicles for us to recognize and express who we are to the world. So, mothering being wrapped up in our creativity makes perfect sense.
I loved all of this so much Courtney. And grateful Substack just recommended you to me, excited to dive into more of your work. I do believe as well that we aren't one or the other - mothers or creatives - both are so intertwined. We mother, we make art (whether that's professionally or not), we make snacks and hold our children, hold ourselves a little along the way too and grow together alongside each other .. a dance between nourishment and chaos, self discovery and a whole lot of surrender. ✨
I love this so much. I was an art major in college and rarely make time to create anymore. This makes me want to run to the store to get a sketch book and allow myself to draw again for the sheer joy of it. Thanks you so much for this nudge.
Yes! Thank you for this lovely post and for sharing your visit to the gorgeous Ruth Asawa show. I share your feeling of kinship with her and her commitment to integrating life and art and also your reflections on the power of potato prints in a big museum! I shared the following on Wendy MacNaughton's site and would love to share here too: for those of you in the Bay Area, the Ruth's Table gallery that Wendy writes about in her post is open to the public. Come see the current exhibit, Intertwined, a collaborative exhibition with SCRAP; sign up for programs; and join our closing celebration on November 30. For those further afield, a number of RT programs are also virtual. https://www.ruthstable.org
Making Art feels like the lover I continually reject or the medicine I refuse to take and I dont really know why. every time i'm called to it again, it's like my soul remembers that it wants this so bad it can taste it, but I keep telling her it's impossible or off-limits for no good reason at all. THanks for another calIing up of this in me.
Making art, even with clumsy hands, helps us to escape from a world that is spinning out of control. Thank you for encouraging those of us who can barely draw a straight line.
Ruth Asawa....swooning here. I've written about her, too, being completely impressed with her work. The more research I did, the more I came to admire her as a person who gave much time and energy and expertise to her community, particularly children. She's was an exemplary artist, citizen, human.
The MacArthur fellow Lynda Barry, a cartoonist and scholar, teaches at maybe Wisconsin, but her passion and research is with kids she describes as being at the age before drawing, writing, and thinking are at all separated.
Part of her focus with adult students and adults more broadly is to encourage such a reintegration. It involves no talent whatsoever and not very much time.
Her first book of this type was called, I think, Syllabus. Any reader who wants to bring drawing, not expert drawing but anyone-can-do-it drawing, back into her life, check it out.
I did daily journaling in her style for several journals worth of time.
I also often have some art stuff going, even if sometimes it is studying a photograph for how I would paint it.
Oh oh oh, I LOVE that you wrote about Ruth Asawa. I saw this exhibit too... on a surprise trip to NYC, after wandering the High Line with a friend, we descended and were at the Whitney, and I (Australian Canadian) was like, I think I've heard of it, shall we go in? And this exhibit just made my whole trip. I loved encountering her work, especially how truly integrated it was with her life as a mother and a member of a community. I hope we see more artists like Ruth elevated in this way, because I'm so sick of bowing at the pedestal of the ruthless selfish men who created things by insisting everyone else make space for them, and do all the other labour to support their life, so they could make their art. It's this hero mythology that continually tilts the world out of balance, and mocks the greatest art of all which is the art of care. Post-script: I'm reading Beth Pickens on Make Your Art No Matter What... If you aren't already friends, Courtney, I feel like you'd love her. I do. She's the voice I need in my head.
I find mothering itself intensely creative, even as it sometimes has kept me from easily creating other things. I mean, I MADE THEM. But also, like everything I’ve ever made they have their own genius they’re bringing into manifestation which sometimes I just have to get out of the way of.
For what it’s worth, creativity and children live in the same “house”, the same realm of life, in astrology. They both are vehicles for us to recognize and express who we are to the world. So, mothering being wrapped up in our creativity makes perfect sense.
I loved all of this so much Courtney. And grateful Substack just recommended you to me, excited to dive into more of your work. I do believe as well that we aren't one or the other - mothers or creatives - both are so intertwined. We mother, we make art (whether that's professionally or not), we make snacks and hold our children, hold ourselves a little along the way too and grow together alongside each other .. a dance between nourishment and chaos, self discovery and a whole lot of surrender. ✨
I love this so much. I was an art major in college and rarely make time to create anymore. This makes me want to run to the store to get a sketch book and allow myself to draw again for the sheer joy of it. Thanks you so much for this nudge.
Yes! Thank you for this lovely post and for sharing your visit to the gorgeous Ruth Asawa show. I share your feeling of kinship with her and her commitment to integrating life and art and also your reflections on the power of potato prints in a big museum! I shared the following on Wendy MacNaughton's site and would love to share here too: for those of you in the Bay Area, the Ruth's Table gallery that Wendy writes about in her post is open to the public. Come see the current exhibit, Intertwined, a collaborative exhibition with SCRAP; sign up for programs; and join our closing celebration on November 30. For those further afield, a number of RT programs are also virtual. https://www.ruthstable.org
Excellent column! Thank you! DD