Louise Bourgeois Weaving

(FINISHED STUDENT PROJECTS)
from art-paperpscissors.blogspot.com

Untitled, 2003

Untitled, 2007

Untitled, 2007

Maman, 1999, Tate Modern in London

student work:

                                     

About the Artist:

Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010) was a beloved contemporary artist, famous for both her sculptures (the large iron Maman spiders) and her textile work. She was born and raised in France, the child of textile restorers, and studied math at the Sorbonne in Paris. After her beloved mother died, Louise abandoned math because what she needed to express she could not do through numbers. She moved to New York with her husband, had three sons, and made first textiles, then sculptures, finding success after opening a studio in Brooklyn. At 71, the Museum of Modern Art in New York had a retrospective of her work. She died at the age of 98, a working artist until the end. Of note: Bourgeois embraced the symbol of the spider as a way to show her loving feelings toward her mother. She described her mother as "deliberate...patient, soothing...subtle, indispensable...and as useful as an araignee" (spider) (quote from Louise Bourgeois' Ode a ma mere). Also said by Louise: "if you bash into the web of a spider, she doesn't get mad. She weaves and she repairs it." 

Materials:
-slideshow

-Cloth Lullaby: The Woven Life of Louise Bourgeois, by Amy Novesky and pictures by Isabelle Arsenault. (Lynne has a copy which she will happily loan out)

Fabric Version:
-Cardboard rectangle, 1 for each student, if doing the fabric variation

-fabric or ribbon, cut into 1" wide strips, length as long as your cardboard. You'll need a bunch! Ideally an assortment of colors and pattern.
-staplers

Paper Version:
-watercolor paper, paints, cups for water and brushes, optional salt
-a piece of construction paper for each child that has strips cut ALMOST all the way across - see the sample picture below
-scissors

-staplers

Activity:

Variation 1 - fabric (this is the project pictured in the first photo in this post). Read Cloth Lullaby to teach kids about Louise Bourgeois' life, and show them the selected pictures in the slideshow. Lead a discussion using the open-ended art questions: What do you see? What makes you say that? What more can you find? 

Have kids choose strips of fabric - long and short. (The amount they'll need depends on the size of your cardboard, but basically the goal is to have enough fabric strips to create a weaving that completely covers the cardboard). Have kids staple fabric strips, starting at the edges, along a top and side (the warp and the weft). Demonstrate how to create the simple weaving, by going over and under with the strips. Work from top to bottom, across. Once a strip is woven, staple the end.

Variation 2 - paper.  Using liquid watercolor and possibly salt for texture (kids sprinkle a small amount on the wet paint and it creates a neat, bubbly surface), have the kids each cover a 9x12 piece of watercolor paper in an abstract, loose wash.

source

While the papers are drying, read the story and discuss the pictures in the slideshow using the open-ended art discussion questions: What do you see? What makes you say that? What more can you find?  
Hopefully you have another helper with you :) who can be cutting each paper into horizontal strips as the paper gets dry enough.

Pass back the strips, letting the kids mix and trade, along with a piece of construction paper that has strips cut almost all the way across or down. Have kids weave the painted strips through the construction paper.  Once a strip is woven, staple the end.

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