Ruth Asawa

Asawa crocheted with wire. She learned the looped technique from basket makers in Toluca, Mexico, in 1947, while still a student at Black Mountain College, and used it to make hanging sculptures of interlocking lobes, transparent forms within forms whose shadows matter as much as the metal. Her method was textile through and through, a single continuous line looped by hand. She worked at her kitchen table while raising six children in San Francisco, and later campaigned for arts education in the city's public schools.