{"id":4217,"date":"2016-12-11T00:01:47","date_gmt":"2016-12-11T06:01:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=4217"},"modified":"2016-12-10T14:16:02","modified_gmt":"2016-12-10T20:16:02","slug":"7-imps-7-kicks-513-featuring-isabelle-arsenault","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=4217","title":{"rendered":"7-Imp\u2019s 7 Kicks #513: Featuring Isabelle Arsenault"},"content":{"rendered":"

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“The river’s soil nurtured a garden where Louise and her family grew geraniums, peonies, asparagus, and cherry trees; apples and pears, purple tamarisk,
pink hawthorn, and sweet-smelling honeysuckle.
Along its banks, her father planted poplars.”<\/em>
(Click to enlarge spread)<\/center>
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\nI’ve got some spreads today from Amy Novesky’s<\/a><\/strong> superb March picture book, Cloth Lullaby: The Woven Life of Louise Bourgeois<\/a><\/em><\/strong> (Abrams), illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault<\/a><\/strong>. This is an exquisite biography of Bourgeois, the French-American artist known for her sculpture and installation art. <\/p>\n

The book opens with Louise as a young girl and places a particular emphasis on her close relationship with her mother, who restored tapestries and actively taught young Louise about the repair of fabrics and about “form and color and the various styles of textiles.” Novesky likens Louise’s mother to a spider, quoting Bourgeois who once said about her mother: “Deliberate … patient, soothing … subtle, indispensable … and as useful as an araign\u00e9e.” The author also uses the river near Louise’s chilhood home as a theme in the book as well: “The river provided flowers and fruit, a lullaby, and a livelihood.”
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“And when Louise was twelve years old, she learned the trade, too, drawing in the missing fragments of tapestry. It was often the bottoms of these fabric pictures that got the most wear and were most in need of repair, and so Louise became adept at drawing feet. Drawing was like a thread in a spider’s web.<\/font>“<\/em>
(Click to enlarge spread)<\/center>
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\nThe college-aged Louise was devastated at the death of her mother, and it was then, Novesky tells us, that she abandoned subjects like math, cosmography, and geometry to study painting, “applying the lessons she’d learned so far to art.” As fans of Bourgeois know, she then went on in her career to paint and weave and sculpt, creating such pieces as this<\/a><\/strong>, named Maman<\/em>. “Her mother was not unlike a spider,” Novesky writes, “a repairer of broken things.”
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“Among tapestries neatly stacked like books in a library, Louise’s mother taught her daughter about form and color and the various styles of textiles.
Some bore elaborate patterns; others told stories.”<\/em>
(Click to enlarge spread)<\/center>
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\nThis eloquent book brings to my mind Patricia MacLachlan’s<\/a><\/strong> The Iridescence of Birds<\/a><\/em><\/strong>, illustrated by Hadley Hooper<\/a><\/strong>, one of my favorite picture books in recent memory. Both books serve as tributes to two incredible artists, who owed a great deal to the beauty and artistic sensibilities their mothers brought to their lives. And Arsenault’s artwork here is simply gorgeous. Her fluid and graceful lines, rich colors, and thoughtful symbolism give the book a striking emotional resonance. <\/p>\n

It’s one of the most beautiful books you’ll see this year.
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“With the remaining fabric of her life, Louise wove together a cloth lullaby. She wove the river that raised her — maternal pinks, blues in watery hues. She wove a mother sewing in the sun, a girl falling asleep beneath the stars,
and everything she’d ever loved.”<\/em>
(Click to enlarge spread)<\/center>
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\nCLOTH LULLABY: THE WOVEN LIFE OF LOUISE BOURGEOIS. Copyright \u00a9 2016 by Amy Novesky. Illustrations copyright \u00a9 2016 by Isabelle Arsenault and reproduced by permission of the publisher, Abrams, New York.<\/em><\/p>\n

Note for any new readers: 7-Imp\u2019s 7 Kicks is a weekly meeting ground for taking some time to reflect on Seven(ish) Exceptionally Fabulous, Beautiful, Interesting, Hilarious, or Otherwise Positive Noteworthy Things from the past week, whether book-related or not, that happened to you. New kickers are always welcome.<\/p>\n

* * * Jules’ Kicks * * *<\/strong><\/font>
<\/center><\/p>\n

1)<\/strong><\/font> I’ve been digging all week the various best-of music lists that one sees at this time of year, such as all of NPR’s lists<\/a><\/strong>. <\/p>\n

2)<\/strong><\/font> I’m enjoying Adam Haslett’s<\/a><\/strong> Imagine Me Gone<\/a><\/strong><\/em>. <\/p>\n

3)<\/strong><\/font> My friend<\/a><\/strong> in the spotlight!<\/p>\n

4)<\/strong><\/font> Katherine Rundell at the New York Times<\/em>.<\/strong><\/a> Thanks to Rachel for pointing this out to me. <\/p>\n

5)<\/strong><\/font> A new song<\/a><\/strong> from Hurray for the Riff Raff. <\/p>\n

6)<\/strong><\/font> Playing with my friends’ five-year-old last night. <\/p>\n

7)<\/strong><\/font> Two 2017 picture book F&GS this week that were particularly wonderful. <\/p>\n

What are YOUR<\/font><\/strong> kicks this week? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“The river’s soil nurtured a garden where Louise and her family grew geraniums, peonies, asparagus, and cherry trees; apples and pears, purple tamarisk,pink hawthorn, and sweet-smelling honeysuckle.Along its banks, her father planted poplars.”(Click to enlarge spread)   I’ve got some spreads today from Amy Novesky’s superb March picture book, Cloth Lullaby: The Woven Life of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,26,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-seven-good-things-before-monday","category-nonfiction","category-picture-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4217\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}