Born in California in 1926, Ruth Asawa grew from a farmer's daughter into a celebrated sculptor. She survived an adolescence in the Japanese American internment camps during World War II, attended the groundbreaking art school at Black Mountain College, fought through lupus and revolutionized arts education in her adopted hometown of San Francisco.

She forged an unconventional path in everything she did – whether raising a multiracial family of six children, founding a high school dedicated to the arts, or pursuing her own practice independent of the New York art market. Her beloved fountains are now San Francisco icons, and her signature hanging-wire sculptures grace the MoMA, de Young, SFMOMA, Whitney and many more museums and galleries across America.  

In this compelling biography, Marilyn Chase brings Asawa's story to vivid life. She draws on Asawa's extensive archives and weaves together many voices – family, friends, teachers, and critics – to offer a complex and fascinating portrait of the artist. With photographs and artworks reproduced throughout the book, this is a richly visual volume that invites readers to step inside Asawa's story. 

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Author Marilyn Chase knew she wanted to be a writer from the 3rd grade on and was lucky enough to realize her childhood dream. Born in Los Angeles and educated in the public schools of Hawthorne, California, she graduated from Stanford University with honors in English Literature and earned a Master's Degree in Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley.  

A former reporter, columnist and senior special writer at The Wall Street Journal for over 20 years, she covered many beats and focused principally on healthcare and medical science. She has taught journalism to graduate students at both Stanford and Berkeley.

Chase is the author of two books. Her most recent is Everything She Touched: The Life of Ruth Asawa (Chronicle Books, 2020), a biography of the San Francisco sculptor who survived discrimination and wrongful imprisonment in a World War II internment camp to make transcendently beautiful art and champion teaching the arts to children. Previously, she wrote The Barbary Plague: The Black Death in Victorian San Francisco (Random House, 2003), the true story of an epidemic in San Francisco's Chinatown in 1900, when doctors had to fight anti-Chinese bias to quash an outbreak of disease threatening the city.

Chase lives in the Bay Area with her family. In her spare time, she loves tennis, cycling, yoga, cooking, gardening and hanging out with her husband, son, daughter and five grandchildren.

Courtesy of marilynchase.com