Asawa, Ruth, Artists' Files, Ankrum Gallery Records

About the Project

Renowned Japanese-American sculptor and arts education advocate, Ruth Asawa was born in California in 1926. Her work can be found in the collections of the Guggenheim Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and throughout museums and public areas of San Francisco. During WWII, Asawa, along with her mother and five of her six siblings, were sent to the Rohwer War Relocation Center in Arkansas. Her father, Umakichi Asawa, was arrested by FBI agents in February 1942 and interned at a detention camp in New Mexico. After leaving Rohwer in 1943, Asawa attended school in Milwaukee and later, at Black Mountain College in North Carolina where she took courses in a variety of different art forms, eventually experimenting with wire. Her looped-wire sculptures earned her prominence in the modern art world, with exhibitions of her work in museums in New York and Californa beginning in the 1950s and 1960s. Help transcribe her artists' files from the Ankrum Gallery.

Renowned Japanese-American sculptor and arts education advocate, Ruth Asawa was born in California in 1926. Her work can be found in the collections of the Guggenheim Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and throughout museums and public areas of San Francisco. During WWII, Asawa, along with her mother and five of her six siblings, were sent to the Rohwer War Relocation Center in Arkansas. Her father, Umakichi Asawa, was arrested by FBI agents in February 1942 and interned at a detention camp in New Mexico. After leaving Rohwer in 1943, Asawa attended school in Milwaukee and later, at Black Mountain College in North Carolina where she took courses in a variety of different art forms, eventurally experimenting with wire. Her looped-wire sculptures earned her prominence in the modern art world, with exhibitions of her work in museums in New York and Californa beginning in the 1950s and 1960s.

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Project Progress (details)

55 pages completed

Difficulty

3 out of 5

(details)

About Project Difficulty

Level 1 - BEGINNER

Content: all typed
Language: English
Format: letters, diaries, flyers, pamphlets, and one-page documents
Subject Area Expertise/Special Skills: none required

Level 2

Content: mostly typed, handwritten in print, or otherwise very clearly written/readable
Language: English
Format: memorabilia, advertisements, image captions, telegrams, diaries, letters, notes
Subject Area Expertise/Special Skills: none required

Level 3 - INTERMEDIATE

Content: typed and handwritten materials in cursive or print
Language: English
Format: newspaper clippings, scrapbooks, letters/diaries/notes that may include annotations or margin notes
Subject Area Expertise/Special Skills: experience reading cursive writing may be useful

Level 4

Content: handwritten materials, primarily in cursive or somewhat difficult to read (predominantly from the 19th and 20th centuries) , audio recordings that are relatively easy to hear/decipher, and scientific materials
Language: English and/or other languages that use Roman script but may require the use of diacritics (French, Spanish, German, Italian, etc.)
Format: audio recordings, letters, diaries, notes and other written materials, projects with templated fields and special instructions
Subject Area Expertise/Special Skills: some knowledge of non-English Roman-character/script languages and diacritics may be useful, as well as experience reading cursive handwriting. A general knowledge or familiarity with scientific terminology.

Level 5 - ADVANCED

Content: handwritten materials in cursive (from the 19th century or earlier) or in a non-Roman script language, audio recordings that are difficult to hear or are not in English, specialty materials/projects such as numismatics projects and the Project Phaedra notebooks
Language: foreign languages that use non-Roman characters (Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Greek/Cyrillic, Native American and Indigenous languages, etc.) and English
Format: audio recordings, columned data/tables, manuscripts, letters, diaries, notes, currency sheets, coins
Subject Area Expertise/Special Skills: knowledge of a specific language and access to a keyboard with the characters in that language may be required for certain projects. Experience reading cursive handwriting and familiarity with 19th century (or prior) handwriting and conventions/abbreviations may be useful, as well as knowledge of scientific terminology, astrophysics data, or linguistics.

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