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I am not what I am, I am what I do with my hands.

Louise Bourgeois

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Louise Bourgeois
Age: 98 †
Born: 1911
Born: January 1
Died: 2010
Died: January 1
Artist
Drawer
Engraver
Illustrator
Installation Artist
Jewelry Designer
Painter
Photographer
Printmaker
Sculptor
Visual Artist
Paris
France
Louise Goldwater
Bourgeois
Hands

More quotes by Louise Bourgeois

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I always had the fear of being separated and abandoned. The sewing is my attempt to keep things together and make things whole.
Louise Bourgeois
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I have drawn my whole life. My parents were in the tapestry restoration business, and as a young girl, I would draw in the missing parts of the tapestry that needed to be re-woven. My ability to draw made me indispensable to my parents.
Louise Bourgeois
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The Spider is an ode to my mother. She was my best friend. Like a spider, my mother was a weaver. . . Like spiders, my mother was very clever. Spiders are friendly presences that eat mosquitoes. We know that mosquitoes spread diseases and are therefore unwanted. So, spiders are helpful and protective, just like my mother.
Louise Bourgeois
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I am a searcher... I always was... and I still am... searching for the missing piece.
Louise Bourgeois
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Everyone should have the right to marry. To make a commitment to love someone forever is a beautiful thing.
Louise Bourgeois
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Every day you have to abandon your past or accept it and then, if you cannot accept it, you become a sculptor.
Louise Bourgeois
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When I was growing up, all the women in my house were using needles. I've always had a fascination with the needle, the magic power of the needle. The needle is used to repair damage. It's a claim to forgiveness. It is never aggressive, it's not a pin.
Louise Bourgeois
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For me, sculpture is the body. My body is my sculpture.
Louise Bourgeois
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My art is a form of restoration in terms of my feelings to myself and to others.
Louise Bourgeois
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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
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Sometimes it is necessary to make a confrontation-and I like that.
Louise Bourgeois
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A work of art doesn't have to be explained. If you do not have any feeling about this, I cannot explain it to you. If this doesn't touch you, I have failed.
Louise Bourgeois
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You must put the essence of what you want to say into a painting. The rest is arbitrary. Chosen with discernment, but chosen, and choice involves elimination.
Louise Bourgeois
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My work disturbs people and nobody wants to be disturbed. They are not fully aware of the effect my work has on them, but they know it is disturbing.
Louise Bourgeois
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Artists are born not made. There's nothing you can do for them.
Louise Bourgeois
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One must accept the fact that others don’t see what you do.
Louise Bourgeois
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My mother was a restorer, she repaired broken things. I don't do that. I destroy things. I cannot go the straight line. I must destroy, rebuild, destroy again. My rhythm is not the same. My mother moved in a straight line: I go from one extreme to the other.
Louise Bourgeois
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A work of art doesn't have to be explained.
Louise Bourgeois
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Tell your own story, and you will be interesting.
Louise Bourgeois
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I was a runaway girl from France who married an American and moved to New York City. Im not sure I would have continued as an artist had I remained in Paris because of the family setup.
Louise Bourgeois