Happy New Year-- and Words of Wisdom from Late French Artist Louise Bourgeois

"Art is a guarantee of sanity. That is the most important thing I have said."

Happy New Year friends! I’ve been deeply inspired and charmed by the words of late French sculptor Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010) and wanted to share her timeless thoughts with my fellow artists on New Year’s Day, 2025 as well as a few thoughts of my own.

As things are changing so quickly in the world around us, and many of us are feeling overwhelmed, we’re going to need to remember WHY it is we love to write in 2025, which will lead us intuitively toward WHAT it is we were meant to write..

Practically speaking, it’s a very good time to settle in with a cup of coffee, a lap cat or dog, and to remember WHY and WHEN you originally knew you wanted to write. I remember thinking, when I was eight-years-old, that I wanted to be one of two things: An author who would write a book as sad as Charlotte’s Web (which I had just read, and loved more than anything), or a person who raised and trained wild horses!

I can see myself back then, hanging upside down on my bed in order to become smarter, feeling the blood to rush into my brain, hoping more than anything that I’d become someone who loves what they do. My mother was an overworked single Mom and I saw her struggling to find the things she loved which were being smothered out of her.

(I’m pictured below on the far right)

More than ever, it is a time now, in 2025, to hold on to that original vision of who we were, and to protect what is most dear.

Hang in there for the forthcoming bumpy ride. We’re all on this rollercoaster together.

With Love, Meg

“It is not so much where my motivation comes from but rather how it manages to survive.”—Louise Bourgeois

Born on Christmas Day 1911 in Paris - French artist Louise Bourgeois was (1911-2010), a visionary artist who turned emotion into form and vulnerability into strength.

Known for her memorable sculptures and deeply personal creations, Bourgeois explored themes of memory, family, and the human condition with honesty. Using art as therapy, she gave form to her emotions and developed a body of themes and motifs in sculpture, drawings and editions, as well as in painting.

Below are some quotes that I particularly love. It is wonderful to me that everything she says about creative expression applies brilliantly to the world of writing.

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“Life is made of emotions. The objects I have created make them tangible” - Louise Bourgeois.

"What art means is that you have to keep finding new ways to express yourself, to express the problems, that there are no settled ways, no fixed approach.”

“You learn for yourself not for others. Learning is your secret, it is all you have, it is the only thing you can call your own. nobody can take it away.”

“I am not what I am, I am what I do with my hands.”

—LOUISE BOURGEOIS

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