Her art affects me in a similar way as Louise Bourgeois' work, Louise Bourgeois being truly famous and featured in top museums around the world. I first saw her stuff in the Brooklyn Museum about twenty years ago, and was puzzled, bothered, and also impressed. My daughter who was with me was so enraptured I bought her a thick book on Bourgeois at the museum shop. I was not moved to buy even a postcard for myself, but I have eagerly watched a film documentary about her. Both Balma and Bourgeois make me very curious.
Does it matter? Art, I mean. Does it really matter in the whole scheme of things whether these artists did or did not do their art? Does it matter that I saw it and was intensely curious but not wanting to take it home with me? Does it matter that someone treasures a book about this artist in their art library?
AND, most importantly to me, does anything I create matter at all?
Maman, by Louise Bourgeois, is a 30-foot-tall spider. This copy of the bronze sculpture was photographed outside the National Gallery of Canada.All the people making things! My little son made energetic things out of wood scraps and nails that I admired but that was a private affair. I make things my now grown son (an accomplished furniture maker) admires, but that is also a private affair. It does matter on at least a one-to-one level and maybe that's enough. (I wonder what Louise's "maman" might have thought about the sculpture named after her? I strongly suspect she and her maman were not as fond of each other as my son and I.)
But we are not immortal and the earth is only a planet and one day it will certainly just go poof back into the universe and all the works of millions of makers will be gone. Most of them will have been seen by only the maker and maybe a family member or friend.
I'm not going to stop making things. And neither is anyone else. It must matter or it would not be so.
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