Timothy Lee (timlee)

It is a general misconception to imagine Louise Bourgeois born with needle in hand, or her mother with one. The rare times her mother touched the needle herself has been recorded in A Life in Pictures: Louise Bourgeois(3)in a photograph shot in the family garden, not in the workshop. She only held the needle as a hobby. As Bourgeois explained to Xavier Tricot, contrary to what people might think, the mother never wove; on the contrary, her specialty and delight was to cut. "My mother organized the repair of ancient tapestries, that are called Arras -- a town where there were a lot of Flemish tapestries. She considered it to be a conceptual work. She did not consider it to be weaving. She thought of it as a collage: 'putting together,' 'repairing.' Which meant finding pieces from the same area that could replace the damaged parts."