Wire, wax, bronze—and many helping hands. 🧵🔥🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Read on for the backstory about Ruth Asawa’s first public commission, the “Andrea” fountain in ghirardellisquare. Then, head over to sfmoma to see her life’s work unfold across 300+ artworks at “Ruth Asawa: Retrospective.” Asawa began this project in 1966 by making a life cast of her friend Andrea Jepson for the mermaids, which she adorned with looped-wire tails cast in bronze with assistance from her friend and assistant Mae Lee. To design the mermaid’s tail, Asawa’s solution was to first loop it in wire, then dip it in wax, and then cast it in bronze. She enjoyed working with the foundrymen at the San Francisco Art Foundry, and was captivated by how she could take an idea from one material and then see it transformed into bronze. The fountain debuted in 1968. Asawa hoped to give the city something timeless: “For the old it would bring back the fantasy of their childhood; for the young it would give them something to remember w...