Front Porch’s Ruth’s Table, Bethany Center join in celebrations of artist Ruth Asawa

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is celebrating the opening of Ruth Asawa: Retrospective, the first major national and international museum retrospective of the groundbreaking work of Ruth Asawa, with a Free Community Day on Sunday, April 13, 2025, designed in collaboration with Ruth’s Table.  

Ruth’s Table, a community art center and making space located in San Francisco’s Mission District, is named for Ruth Asawa. In 2009, the artist donated her dining table, constructed by her husband, architect Albert Lanier, to Bethany Center, a CARING Housing Ministries affordable housing community for seniors. The table, symbolic of social gathering, community and creativity, formed the start of the arts initiative now called Ruth’s Table.

“The work table sitting in our gallery was designed by Ruth’s husband, architect Albert Lanier, who she met as a student at Black Mountain College, and with whom she raised six kids in San Francisco’s Noe Valley neighborhood,” Evan Johnson, director of Ruth’s Table, explains. “Ruth’s way of weaving creativity into her daily life, well into her eighties, continues to inspire intergenerational arts offerings we serve up at Ruth’s Table.”

Due to its connection with the artist, Ruth’s Table was invited by SFMOMA to collaborate on the Free Community Day celebrating the opening of the retrospective at the museum. On Sunday, April 13^th from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Ruth’s Table is offering “a day of performances and hands-on making, facilitated by Bay Area artists who share Asawa’s belief in the power of art making to build connection and community” in partnership with SFMOMA.

“We were tapped to produce these activity zones, inspired by Ruth Asawa’s approach to after school arts education,” says Johnson. “It’s going to be this really exciting event that celebrates community projects and people working together to share in creative outcomes.” Along with these activities, museum admission is free all day. More information is available here.

In addition to the exhibition, SFMOMA has shared a map from the Ruth Asawa website with the locations of the artist’s public works throughout San Francisco, including the mosaic Growth created for Bethany Center in 1968-1969. “It’s an inspiring message at this senior center entryway, symbolizing the new directions and beginnings that aging can bring,” the tour’s audio guide explains.

Ruth’s Table is also partnering with SFMOMA for a Create and Connect event on Thursday, May 1 from 4:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. at the museum. “We booked an amazing artist, Nobuko Miyamoto, who will be sharing a performance in tribute to Ruth Asawa. Like Ruth, Miyamoto’s family experienced forced removal during World War II. Her performance will invite the audience to come together in a shared experience and will feature over 200 hundred paper fans made by our Creative Re-use workshop participants,” says Johnson.

Ruth Asawa was born in California in 1926. During World War II, she and her family were among the many Japanese Americans placed in internment camps, first at the Santa Anita racetracks and then Arkansas where she spent her senior year of high school at the Rohwer Relocation Center, “surrounded by eight watchtowers and barbed wire fences,” according to ruthasawa.com. After studying at Black Mountain College, she moved to San Francisco where she married architect Albert Lanier. She created her art, including her iconic looped wire sculptures, while raising six children. She created many pieces of public art for the city of San Francisco, was appointed to the city’s Art Commission, and co-founded the Alvarado School Arts Workshop, among other achievements.

“In addition to being a maker of her own art, she was also a very fierce advocate for Arts Education,” says Johnson. Throughout her life, Asawa continued to work to provide access to art, including her work to create San Francisco’s public high school for the arts, renamed Ruth Asawa School of the Arts in 2010. Asawa died in 2013.

The SFMOMA exhibition is the first posthumous retrospective of her work. Later this year, it will also be presented at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, followed by Guggenheim Bilbao, Spain and Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel, Switzerland. The tour coincides with what would have been Asawa’s 100^th birthday on January 24, 2026.

Along with its involvement with the public programs related to Ruth Asawa: Retrospective, Ruth’s Table is also hosting an exhibition called Rooted, featuring Bay Area-based Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander identified artists. The exhibition will be shown at the Ruth’s Table gallery from April 10 – June 6. Jun Yang, the show’s curator, shares, “In honor of AANHPI History Month and inspired by the transformative legacy of Ruth Asawa, Rooted is a visual manifesto that reminds us of the fierce battles fought for our rights and the enduring strength of our community.”

Through Ruth’s Table, Asawa continues to inspire people of all ages and cultures to create art. “The vision continues for intergenerational inclusion,” says Johnson. “We have programming in multiple languages. And we do a lot of outreach with folks of all ability levels, including cognitive levels. Today, we had a program for memory care participants and their caregivers, and then neighborhood school groups that come and access the space for after school programs.”

Johnson is also inspired by Asawa’s life and legacy. “I think of her as a spiritual godmother,” he says. “If I’m ever feeling down or looking for inspiration, I can look to her story – not just her time as an arts educator and all her art making, but also her resilience.”