Asawa was born on a farm in Southern California to first-generation Japanese American parents. During World War II, her teen years, she and her family were incarcerated in Japanese internment camps. After the War, she attended multi-disciplinary art classes at the now famous Black Mountain College in North Carolina with teachers such as Joseph Albers and Buckminster Fuller and many creative fellow students. One of her fellow students, architect Albert Lanier, became her husband. After Black Mountain College, Lanier got a job with an architecture firm in San Francisco, and they made their home in San Francisco since 1949.

Asawa’s art was always integrated with family life. Her work hung from the ceiling in the living areas of their home.  The wire sculptures were suspended in space and consisted of multiple joined and rounded forms that one could see through to other forms inside. These net-like constructions cast intriguing shadows and are nearly always displayed as groupings that interact with each other. The sculptures seem to grow, expand and contract organically, and the inside sometimes became the outside of her evolving forms. While having connections to natural forms, her sculptures are decidedly abstract. She learned this looped-wire technique on a summer trip to Mexico where she saw local craftsmen making looped wire baskets in the market. This technique is somewhat similar to crochet or knotless netting that might be done with threads; she used only her hands and sometimes a pair of pliers.