"Art is for everybody," according to Asawa. "It is not something that you should have to go to the museums in order to see and enjoy. When I work on big projects, such as a fountain, I like to include people who haven't yet developed their creative side — people yearning to let their creativity out. I like designing projects that make people feel safe, not afraid to get involved."

In 1968, Asawa co-founded the Alvarado School Arts Workshop, with friend and fellow parent, Sally Woodbridge. It was an innovative program that involved parents and professional artists in the public schools so that young children had the chance to develop more fully as individuals. They started with almost no money and throwaway objects — milk cartons, egg cartons, scraps of yarn, and flour, salt and water. They spent the summer working with baker's clay. It was a cheap and safe material to introduce children to sculpture. At about the same time, Asawa became a member of the San Francisco Arts Commission and began lobbying politicians and charitable foundations to support arts programs that would benefit young children and average San Franciscans. At its peak, the Alvarado School Arts Workshop was in 50 public schools in San Francisco. It employed artists, musicians, and gardeners and recruited thousands of parents to be involved in public education.

Asawa would go on to serve on the California Arts Council, the National Endowment for the Arts, and become a trustee of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. As an arts advocate, her focus was always on arts education. "I think that I'm primarily interested in making it possible for people to become as independent and self-sufficient as possible. That has nothing really to do with art, except that through the arts you can learn many, many skills that you cannot learn through books and problem-solving in the abstract. 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." View a gallery of Asawa's work in the schools » Learn how to make baker's clay »