A magical weekend!

A picture story

Ruth Asawa, Tired wire detail, with shadows, MoMA, January 2026

My dear friend Meleia gifted me a magical weekend in New York last weekend to see the Ruth Asawa Retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art! (Thank you, darling!!!!)

It was an arctic cold weekend! My friend is an expert at dressing in extreme cold, and she taught me all the tricks. We were fine in the lowest temps!

At Union Station, we had Winter Lattes at Blue Bottle Coffee, described as “a seasonal beverage featuring a blend of Hayes Valley espresso, steamed milk, and a fragrant, woodsy juniper berry syrup. Topped with freshly cracked pink peppercorn for a subtle floral note, it offers a sweet, aromatic, and slightly herbaceous flavor profile.” YUM!

On the way north on the train, we noticed all the rivers were frozen!!! And we read this really delightful graphic book.

On arrival, we had a veg bowl at a casual Korean spot called Ongi, then stopped by to see Gertrude Stein in Bryant Park…

…which is right behind the New York Public Library (I LOVE LIBRARIES!!!!).

These are a few of the books written at the library.

Did you know that the famous lions out front are named Patience and Fortitude?

We took the metro to M’s cousin’s apartment on the East Side, near the park, and had tea and conversation with our hostess, who is DELIGHTFUL.

Our next outing was to be a surprise (our hostess knew, but I didn’t). It turned out to be just a couple of blocks away.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art!!! This sunlit bronze sculpture of the goddess Diana by Augustus St. Gaudens is the riveting focus of a glass-ceilinged, open-court gallery. We noticed the snow piled on the glass roof, which at first appeared to be clouds…

The Temple of Dendur, circa 15 BCE, was dedicated to the goddess Isis. Watch this brief, fascinating story about how this came to be in the Met. (3:10)

We had dinner at Hangawi, a warm, serene Korean vegetarian restaurant, where we took off our shoes and sat on cushions on the floor (the foot wells were heated!). They say, “Here, every meal is a ritual that brings calm, respect and nourishment to the body and soul.” Yes! So beautiful.

We walked over 14,000 steps that day!

After a marvelous night’s sleep, we walked through Central Park. The temperature said, “Feels like 0.”

A dream come true!

These are the elegant, hand-woven, hanging wire sculptures for which Asawa is most famous. Each is made of a single strand of wire, using a coiling technique she learned as a young woman during a summer in Mexico. The art world resisted calling them “sculptures” in the first place because they weren’t displayed on pedestals.

Asawa (1926 – 2013) constantly made art across multiple media in her lively home studio in San Francisco, while simultaneously cooking and caring for her 6 children, as well as constructing public art commissions and advocating ardently for art education for children. Incarcerated in a Japanese internment camp during WWII, educated in art at Black Mountain College in NC, she became an unparalleled artist, person, changemaker, and total inspiration.