We encourage everyone to celebrate Ruth Asawa’s centennial by hosting their own Dough In! The recipe and helpful tips, as well as an audio guide with more information about Asawa’s public commissions around the San Francisco Bay Area can be found on RuthAsawa.com.
Don’t forget to tag Ruth Asawa on Facebook and Instagram (@ruthasawaofficial) using the hashtag #ASAWA100.
San Francisco Poet Laureate Genny Lim honors Ruth Asawa’s legacy with a special tribute poem written for the #ASAWA100 celebration. Accompanied by cellist Kathryn Bates of the Del Sol Quartet, Genny invites us to live in “Asawa’s Dream.”
Asawa’s Dream
All the world’s a tree
With branches and leaves to be
A single strand of elements spun
In shapes suspended in sky
All the world’s a rhythmic dance
Slipping between shadow and light
A dazzling geometry woven in space
From the chaos of natural order
The genius of nature is born
The art of a fertile mind
Dares to dream the world
A circle, a basket
Visible and whole
A unity of opposites
A replica of worlds within worlds
In continuous bending, looping
Coiling, wrapping of shape
Electric fingers curling wire
Into intricate cycles
And overlapping spirals
The children watch, transfixed as
She sculpts nature’s process
She shows them how we
Dream the world to be
In unending forms from
The web of life that unites
Plants, animals and all living things
Galaxies and myriad worlds
A bursting star to infinity
The dream of life
In harmony
Kessoku
©2026 Genny Lim
Literary Arts / Literary Heritage
The SFUSD Arts Education Master Plan (AEMP) was published twenty years ago in 2006, as San Francisco Unified School District’s blueprint for integrating the arts into each student’s daily curriculum. The plan detailed why and how the district would provide an education in which students accrue quality knowledge of the arts and creative experiences from day one of preschool through their senior year in high school.
The plan, which opened with the guiding principles of equity and access for “Every school, every student, every day,” included this quote by Ruth Asawa:
“Just as athletes need to exercise every day, children need to make art every day.”
The AEMP defined Arts Education, using the terms ’arts discipline’ and ‘art form’ to refer to Dance, Music, Theatre, and the Visual Arts, recognizing that each of these encompasses a wide variety of forms and sub-disciplines.”
“In addition, the master plan proudly includes literary arts, an important element of the artistic and cultural landscape of San Francisco. By including the literary arts, the master plan highlights the many creative possibilities open to young writers living in a community long known and respected for its powerful literary heritage.”
Ruth Asawa: Transforming the Ordinary (2004)
Poems by 5th Graders, Rooftop Alternative School
In the Spring 2004, Rooftop Alternative School participated in an art study focused on the art of Ruth Asawa with the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts Lincoln Center Institute aesthetic education program. Students were posed the question, “How does Ruth Asawa transform the ordinary in her public works at Union Square, Japantown and the Oakland Museum?” Classes visited Japantown and Union Square, receiving the hospitality
of the communities served by Ruth’s art. Students worked with paper, wire, and baker’s dough — and fifth grade students wrote poetry, in response to Ruth Asawa’s works of art, with teaching artist Gail Newman of California Poets in the Schools.
“Suspended Words” Lesson Plan
Sculpture of Ruth Asawa: Contours in the Air (2006)
Educator’s Guide, de Young Museum
Just as Ruth Asawa experimented with Baker’s Clay and wire, other artists, such as poets, experiment with words to capture their inspiration and ideas. The de Young Museum Education Department 2006 Educator’s Guide for Sculpture Of Ruth Asawa: Contours in the Air included a lesson called “Suspended Words” which invited students to express their reactions to Asawa’s work and provide their own interpretations.
