the big spiders are my favorites

I've had Louise Bourgeois on my mind this week since I watched the documentary "Louise Bourgeois: The Spider, the Mistress and the Tangerine" last week. Allow me to say: I'm a little scared of her. But in the best possible way, I think. It's a respectful fear. I've never understood artists who appear to have that direct unbreakable link between their selves and making work. I'm in awe of it every time.

“My knives are like a tongue - I love, I do not love, I hate. If you don’t love me, I am ready to attack. I am a double-edged knife.”  ― Louise Bourgeois

"I am not what I am, I am what I do with my hands." — Louise Bourgeois

"Art is restoration: the idea is to repair the damages that are inflicted in life, to make something that is fragmented - which is what fear and anxiety do to a person - into something whole."                     — Louise Bourgeois 

As I grew up mostly mom-less and with a love for all bugs I was extra thrilled that she interprets spiders as mother figures. I mean: Charlotte's Web, right? Right.

I will also say, I had to wonder if she wasn't the reason for a lot of terrible confessional performance art and embroidered text on things that came after her. Not that it's all terrible, blah blah blah, but you know some of it is. There was no reason for any art student to still be pouring honey on their boobs in 1993, and yet. I did love that the Guerrilla Girls interviewed got that she would probably not want to be embraced by them. And I love that it didn't stop them.