Ruth Asawa was an American Modernist artist of Japanese descent. In the late 1940s she began studying at North Carolina’s Black Mountain College, where she was fortunate enough to have the acclaimed German-American color theorist Josef Albers as one of her mentors, and the late legendary architect and scientific genius R. Buckminster Fuller as another. 

She achieved success and acclaim in her 30s, even as the prevailing movements of the time, Pop Art, Abstract Expressionism, etc. were still dominated by men. She continued to work into her 80s, and lived long enough to see the commissioning in 2010 of the The Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts, formerly titled simply School of the Arts, whose famous alumni now include comedian Margaret Cho, actor Sam Rockwell, and singer-songwriter Miranda Lee Richards.

In September of 2023 New York City’s Whitney Museum of American Art opened the exhibition 'Ruth Asawa Through Line', to critical acclaim - with a focus on her print and drawing work, rather than the wildly imaginative looped wire sculptures that made her famous. 

In this wonderfully engaging and enlightening video, the museum’s Associate Manager of Family Programs and Intergenerational Initiatives Laura Protzel, taking inspiration from Asawa, shows us how to make some rather “delicious” prints using real fruits and vegetables. 

Please do try this at home.