Mom, is that you?

"Once you begin watching spiders, you haven't time for much else."

E.B. White (author)

Want to make someone’s day? Share Artips with a friend →

Email not displaying correctly? Click here.

Afraid of spiders? Avert your eyes. French artist Louise Bourgeois’ massive creations will make your skin crawl.

Bourgeois (who clearly didn’t suffer from any fear of creepy, crawly things) debuted a series of spider sculptures, some as tall as 30 feet, in the 1990s. Made from steel and bronze, they stand on spindly legs and are big enough to walk under.

Louise Bourgeois "Maman", Tate, London. © The Easton Foundation / ADAGP, Paris 2016.
Enlarge Image

If you dare to get close enough to one of the spiders, you’ll notice a collection of marble eggs cradled inside its belly. Are these stolen from a giant bird’s nest? Nope. The sculpture’s name, Maman (Mother), offers a clue: these are her future offspring.

Photograph of a detail of one of the spider sculptures. The marble eggs are visible within the spider’s belly.

For Bourgeois, the spider was an important image that began appearing in her drawings and paintings in the 1940s. The creature was a direct reference to her mother. "Because my best friend was my mother, and she was as intelligent, patient, proper and useful, reasonable and indispensable as a spider," she once said

Louise Bourgeois "Maman", 1999, photograph: Marcus Leith and Andrew Dunkley, Tate Photography, Tate, London. © The Easton Foundation / ADAGP, Paris 2016.
Enlarge Image

So are spiders simply an adoring and literal tribute? In some ways, yes. Like the spider, Bourgeois’ mother worked with fabric, restoring tapestries by weaving her threads day in and day out.

In other ways, the implications are a little ambiguous. Spiders can reassure and protect, creating a cocoon in which to shelter their children. They can also be determined predators, imprisoning victims in their web.

Fernando Pascullo, "Mother at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain", 2008, photograph. © The Easton Foundation / ADAGP, Paris 2016.
Enlarge Image

Bourgeois took inspiration from her difficult childhood. For her, the creature was a symbol of maternal love, so strong and complicated. Her work suggests that spiders aren’t all bad.

Louise Bourgeois, "Spider Couple", 2003, bronze and silver nitrate patina, 90 x 142 x 144 in., Gemeente Museum, Den Haag, Netherlands. © The Easton Foundation / ADAGP, Paris 2016.