Ruth Asawa, Untitled (S.270, Hanging Six-Lobed, Complex Interlocking Continuous Form within a Form with Two Interior Spheres), 1954, refabricated in 1958

Narrator: Ruth Asawa made this sculpture out of wire. She learned how to make the forms in Mexico, watching weavers make traditional baskets. Because she worked in wire, her weavings were see-through—made up mostly of air. At the same time, the materials seem really strong. Asawa once described her woven wire as seeming like medieval chain mail, a material used to make armor. Big yet light, strong yet airy: Asawa was interested in these oppositions. She also liked the way the shapes reminded her of things in nature. She once compared the woven patterns to lines she drew with her toes in the soil of the California farm where she had grown up.