CCA News

How Has Louise Bourgeois Inspired You?

Posted on Tuesday, June 1, 2010, by Clay Walsh

French-born American artist and sculptor Louise Bourgeois (1911–2010) passed away Monday at age 98. The artist first studied painting at École du Louvre, then at École des Beaux-Arts. She was an assistant to Fernand Léger, a French painter, sculptor, and filmmaker, before moving to New York in 1938, where she continued displaying her work until the end of her life.

We reached out to CCA alumna and ceramicist Diana Fayt (Ceramics 1992) who offered her thoughts about how this influential artist so deeply inspired her.

"Upon graduating from CCA, I saw an exhibit of her drawings at the UC Berkeley Art Museum in 1992. Her drawings; crude, gentle, seemingly naive yet utterly confident on torn sheets of notebook paper. Those drawings demystified art making for me. That one exhibit gave me the confidence to make work without the 'how I should' or 'not good enough' voices getting in the way of my making work. I have always loved her and when asked who my favorite artist is, she is always at the top of my list!"

Please let us know how Louise Bourgeois influenced your work or life as an artist by commenting on the Facebook Fan Page for California College of the Arts.