Nature�Suggested for ages 11–18
Teaching
Contemporary Art
NATURE
How are artists inspired by nature to create abstracted, organic forms?
VIEW AND DISCUSS
Sopheap Pich, Morning Glory, 2011. Rattan, bamboo, wire, plywood, and steel, 188 x 261.6 x 533.4 cm. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Guggenheim UBS MAP Purchase Fund 2013.3
What do you notice? �What does this sculpture look like to you?
VIEW AND DISCUSS
Sopheap Pich, Morning Glory, 2011. Installation view, NTU Centre for Contemporary Art, Singapore, 2014
Here is another view of Morning Glory by Sopheap Pich. �What are some words you might use to describe this sculpture? �How do you think the artist might have created this sculpture?
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Sopheap Pich (សុភាព ពេជ្រ). Born 1971, Battambang, Cambodia; lives and works in Phnom Penh, Cambodia
In 1979, when the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia led to the ousting of the brutal communist regime known as the Khmer Rouge, Pich fled with his family to Thailand, a neighboring country. Pich remembers traveling far distances with his family by foot and seeing many sad things during their travels. After spending four years in refugee camps, he migrated with his family to the �
United States, where he later went to school to study painting. Memories of his childhood drew him back to Cambodia in 2002. �In 2005 he gave up painting and became more interested in producing art with rattan and bamboo—materials traditionally used in Khmer crafts, such as basket weaving and making fish traps.
NATURE AND MEMORY
Sopheap Pich, Morning Glory, 2011
In Cambodia, the common morning glory plant is served as a green vegetable. During the Khmer Rouge regime, Cambodians valued �it as a source of nourishment at a time when millions were threatened by starvation.
Pich remembered eating the morning glory plant in a soup when �he was a little boy. He used his memories of this time in his life as inspiration to create the sculpture Morning Glory.
Morning glory flower
Morning glory is a readily available and nutritious plant that grows easily on water, like weeds.
Morning glory is still used in soups and dishes today in some parts of Asia. This morning glory soup was made with tofu.
Watch this Guggenheim video to learn more about Pich’s inspiration for the work. The artist recalls memories of the morning glory flower from his childhood in Cambodia, a very turbulent time in the country’s history.
MATERIALS AND PROCESS
Sopheap Pich working in his studio, Phnom Penh, 2009
What do you think Pich means by this quote?��“I find that making sculptures, while utilizing various ways and techniques that are different from drawing, are in many ways—meditative. . . . Slicing rattan and bamboo strands with blades and tying wires for making sculptures is very meditative as well. You can also see that in the end, my work tends to have a kind of complete look to them, a kind of clarity in the forms; and this also requires a kind of meditation to arrive at.”*
For more information on Pich’s use of materials and his process, you can view this Guggenheim video.
Art-Making Activity
Have you ever done anything creative that also seemed calming �and meditative? What was it?
Take a few minutes to write down or do a quick drawing about a time that you created something that gave you a sense of calm.
VIEW AND DISCUSS
Ruth Asawa, Untitled, 1962–65. Brass wire, copper wire, and resin, 62.2 x 61 x 20.3 cm. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Gift, The Josef Albers Estate 80.2689
What do you notice about �this sculpture? Does it �remind you of anything?
In addition to creating abstract sculptures with wire, the artist Ruth Asawa was trained in drawing and painting. She drew everyday, and on her website, you can look at a drawing that has very similar shapes to this sculpture.
COMPARE AND CONTRAST
Ruth Asawa, Untitled, 1962–65
Sopheap Pich, Morning Glory, 2011
What are some similarities between these two artworks?
What are some differences?
NATURE AND MEMORY
Asawa was inspired by a desert plant that was given to her in 1962, the year she began this Untitled sculpture!
“I started in 1962 when a friend of ours brought a desert plant from Death Valley and said, ‘Here’s something for you to draw.’ I tried to draw it, but it was such a tangle that I had to construct it in wire in order to draw it. And then I got the idea that I could use it as a way to work in wire. I began to see all the possibilities: opening up the center and then making it flat on the wall, and putting it on a stand.”
—Ruth Asawa*
Art-Making Activity
Think back to a time that you were in nature and noticed something that struck you as unique or different. Write or draw your ideas on a piece of paper and share them with the group. ��What would you choose in nature to make a sculpture of? What materials would you want to use to create your sculpture, if you could use anything?
Or, is there something from nature that you have around your house that holds a special memory for you and/or your family?
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Ruth Asawa. Born 1926, Norwalk, California; died 2013 San Francisco
Asawa was born in California in 1926 to Japanese immigrant parents. She was the daughter of farmers who grew crops, such as strawberries and carrots, and who faced discriminatory laws that did not allow them to own land in California or become American citizens. When Asawa was a little girl, she was often given farm chores to do.
Reflecting on her time spent working (and daydreaming) on farms in her earlier years she said, “I used to sit on the back of the horse drawn leveler with my bare feet drawing forms in the sand, which later in life became the bulk of my sculptures.”*
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Ruth Asawa’s internment-camp ID card, 1943. Gelatin silver print. The National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, �Gift of the children of Ruth Asawa
In 1942 Asawa’s family was separated and taken to internment camps. After leaving the camps, she earned a scholarship to study to become an art teacher. Because of discrimination against Japanese Americans, however, she was not able to secure a job �as an art teacher at that time.
She later became an student at Black Mountain College in �North Carolina (1946–49), where she learned many artistic techniques and was inspired by the nature that surrounded �her. For more information on Asawa’s artwork and life, visit �her website.
VIEW AND DISCUSS
Ruth Asawa, Untitled, 1962–65. Copper wire, 36.8 x 36.8 x 18.4 cm. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York Gift, The Josef Albers Estate 80.2690
Look at another Untitled sculpture by Asawa. How do you think the artist created this sculpture?
MATERIALS AND PROCESS
Ruth Asawa with one of her wire sculptures
Image Placeholder
Asawa wove with wires to make her abstract sculptures. The type of sculpture on the previous slide is often referred to as a “tied wire sculpture.” The kind shown on this slide is connected in a more woven way and often referred to as a “looped wire sculpture.”
Sometimes Asawa used paper to test out an idea before creating a wire sculpture—a technique she learned as an art student at Black Mountain College.
Art-Making Activity
Create a three-dimensional woven-paper sculpture using paper, scissors, tape, and a plaiting technique! ��Materials Needed:
STEPS TO CREATE A WOVEN-PAPER SCULPTURE
1. First fold a sheet of paper (8.5 x 11”) in half.
STEPS TO CREATE A WOVEN-PAPER SCULPTURE
2. Make cuts into the folded sheet of paper, about one or two
inches apart—be sure not to cut all the way to the end!
3. Take a second piece of paper (8.5 x 11”) and cut one-inch strips.
STEPS TO CREATE A WOVEN-PAPER SCULPTURE
4. Place the one-inch paper strips and the folded paper side by side.
5. Weave the strips using an over-under plaiting.*
*Start with one paper strip, weaving it in to the larger sheet in an over-under plaiting. Take the next paper strip and weave it into the larger sheet using an under-over plaiting. Continue alternating the pattern until you use all your paper strips.
STEPS TO CREATE A WOVEN-PAPER SCULPTURE
6. Twist and turn the woven paper to create a � three-dimensional sculpture!*
7. Add clear tape to secure it in whatever way you want.
*Think of a natural object as inspiration as you fold and twist the paper. This sixth-grade artist was thinking of a rose!
CAN YOU GUESS?
One of these woven-paper sculptures was inspired by a seashell, �and the other was inspired by a rose. Can you guess which is which?
OTHER PAPER-WEAVING MATERIALS
Additional Materials:
What other materials do you think might be good for weaving?
OTHER PAPER-WEAVING MATERIALS
Strips of packing material and black paper woven through �a sheet of white paper
Create another woven paper sculpture by weaving different colored papers together.
OTHER PAPER-WEAVING MATERIALS
If you make more than one sculpture, try connecting them with tape or placing them near each other. You can also hang them by weaving yarn through them and tying them to something.
QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER
Two Untitled sculptures (both 1962–65) by Ruth Asawa hanging at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
Will your woven paper sculpture hang, or will it stand on its own?
Will it hang and create shadows, like Asawa’s sculpture?
Or will it stretch out, twist, �and turn, like Pich’s seventeen-�foot-long sculpture?
For more views of Asawa’s sculptures and the beautiful shadows that they create, see the artist’s website.
“A child can learn something about color, about design, and about observing objects in nature. If you do that, you grow into a greater awareness of things around you. Art will make people better, more highly skilled in thinking and improving whatever business one goes into, or whatever occupation. It makes a person broader.”
—Ruth Asawa*
Copyright & Credits
Photo Credits
p. 3 (left): Oliver Christie for Tyler Rollins Fine Art; pp. 3 (right), 4, 5 (right), 12 (left): Courtesy Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, and NTU Centre for Contemporary Art, Singapore; p. 5: Courtesy Sopheap Pich Studio; p. 6 (left); Public domain; p. 7 (left) Dorami Chan, Creative Commons; p. 7 (right) Helen Alfvegren, Creative Commons; p. 9: Stéphane Janin; pp. 11, 12 (right), 17: Allison Chipak, Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York; pp. 15, 18: © Imogen Cunningham Trust; p. 16: National Portrait Gallery; pp. 20–27: Juna Messina-Nozawa; p. 28: Jodi Messina-Nozawa
Educator: Jodi Messina-Nozawa
Design: Brette Richmond
Editorial: Michael Ferut��Teaching Contemporary Art © 2020 The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. All rights reserved. Teaching Contemporary Art is supported by The Freeman Foundation. Images of the works included in this resource may be used for education purposes only and are not licensed for commercial applications of any kind.
Artwork by Ruth Asawa © The Estate of Ruth Asawa/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Artwork by Sopheap Pich © Sopheap Pich.