Friday, January 11, 2013

The body gives up, the love still exists



She awoke throughout the night, struggling to just exist.
 Confused, her body no longer worked as it had at one time.
 Her hips displaced, her legs no longer cooperating
She was ambling, not knowing where to go or what she is capable of

She was gently put back into bed.
The comforting sounds of her dearest loved one settled into her soul
 and carried her through the night.

She had others to visit
She had to say goodbye to just a couple more loved ones

the morning brought confusion and concern
she was taken to seek help,
 by her most beloved friend,
 in a last chance effort to heal her

Arriving home, her only desire to lay quietly and rest
soothed by the many comforting hands
of the loved ones surrounding her...
she hung on to these last few moments

kind words whispered in her ear,
encouraging well wishes
memories shared
she stayed with us
looking at each of us with sadness and deep longing

I felt it. She was saying goodbye.

We needed to get out, go for a walk.
We headed to the Grotto.
A place for prayer, meditation and peace
a fitting place to be at a time of such great transition

Her time came to pass on
She let go
allowing herself to fall into a deep peaceful sleep
that brings the eternal happiness
finding long lost friends who had gone before

She arrives
welcomed
by those who have waited for her to join them in play again

Vera
Feb 25th 2012





Saturday, January 5, 2013

Who inspires me? Louise Bourgeois

Sometime in my early 20's I came across a photo/advertisement of an older woman, with a distinctive look of Resolved Artistic Confidence, wearing avery plain black dress and mud boots. Firmly clutched in her right hand, drawn close in to her chest, she holds a phallic sculpture.   At that very moment, I knew...  from that day forward, my old ideas about life, Art and Feminism, were about to change, dramatically.
                                                    


Louise Bourgeois, born in 1911, grew up in provincial France, born to a family of tapestry weavers. Her studies went from mathematics to Art. She married and Art Historian and moved to New York. Her early works were surrealist paintings, engravings and moved on to sculpture. Her work was abstract and and progressed to become more controversial and often disturbing as she used latex, found objects and her work began to reflect deep emotions of loneliness, anxiety, aggression and obsession. Her work was hard to categorize, so she remained on the fringe of the art wordl, unwilling to define her 'style'
 Around the age of 70, she was granted a Retrospective of her work, a rare offering. Her work was admittedly the result of the trauma from her childhood, discovering that her Governess was also her father's mistress. Bourgeois's artwork is renowned for its highly personal thematic content involving love traumas, sexual fetish, and the body. She has always considered art-making a therapeutic process.  Her sculptures explore women's deepest feelings on birth, sexuality and death.
 Louise died at 98.
In short, she has exploded the way I view Art and expression.
  " It is obvious that men and women are different, I don't have to prove it"
 It is very difficult to be a woman and be likeable, you see, this desire to be likeable, it is really...a pain in the neck. How are you going to be likeable? AND BE YOURSELF?"  Louise Bourgeois
The Spider, the Mistress and the Tangerine-a documentary...