You Can’t Force a Plant to Bloom: Visiting Ruth Asawa’s Retrospective at SFMOMA, by Sailor Holladay

You Can’t Force a Plant to Bloom: Visiting Ruth Asawa’s Retrospective at SFMOMA 
 
Fruit salad hums while wearing a dress 
Pulsating chandelier in sea creature lingerie 
Her wire sculptures untitled but voluminous
Fingers knitting all gauges of metal 
Gold-filled, brass, bronze, galvanized steel, and iron
“I’m not so interested in the expression of something”, she said
“I’m more interested in what the material can do. And so that’s why I keep exploring” 
Her studio was in her home and her home was in her studio 
She was an artist and mother at the same time 
Diapers, bottles, wire
“I work here because they might need a PB and J”, she said 
Vessels inside vessels 
Mothers inside walls 
Planets inside cages 
What did her hands feel like to her? 
On the recreated living room bookshelf there was a bronze cast of her hands, left and right
They looked mighty
I couldn’t touch 
A steady stream of onlookers flowed through the rooms, soothed 
She wanted the shadows of her art, her vessels, to touch the human vessels who got near 
Sharing space 
Ruth Asawa drew bouquets brought to her by her son Paul and her husband Albert 
Black ink on white paper 
Flower skeletons 
“You can’t force a plant to bloom”, she said 
“It has a cycle.”
“You have to tend it and care for it and wait for the bloom to happen” 
I don’t yet draw flowers but I want to draw flowers
Drawing flowers is not about drawing flowers like Ruth Asawa 
I don’t yet know what drawing flowers is about, but I know that Ruth Asawa knew because she kept drawing flowers 
 
Sailor Holladay

​Sailor Holladay is a writer, quilter, and teacher at a public school in Portland, Oregon. She also assists in putting on Shakespeare plays with middle school aged actors.