Friday 4 September 2009

Inward to the Bones (a piece about Georgia O'Keefe)

I killed off all sentiment. Did it
for the pictures. It was not allowed
to be an artist and a woman too.
My art had sculpted me, made me
the woman you see.
Something round and warm had to go.
What was left were my bones -
terribly beautiful in a hard desert light.
- from a poem about Georgia O'Keeffe by Emily Braid.

Georgia O'Keefe is an artist both my mother and I admire; not just for her striking art, but also her sheer determination to paint things her own way, despite critique, and isolation, and in the later years, failing eyesight. She was also able to articulate the inner bones of her artistic nature. I love these words:

"I thought someone could tell me how to paint a landscape, but I never found that person. I had to just settle down and try. I thought someone could tell me how, but I found nobody could. They could tell you how they painted their landscape but they couldn't tell me to paint mine."
- from an interview with Georgia O'Keefe, aged 92

- Image: Arnold Newman, 'Georgia O'Keeffe, Ghost Ranch, New Mexico', 1968
Link to further resources on O'Keefe here 

7 comments:

Shaista said...

I have taken the advice of a friend and changed the layout of the comments page. Let me know if it has improved/eased leaving comments. Also, on the Comments Settings page, do you click on 'New Posts Have Comments' or 'New Posts Do Not Have Comments'? Help! :)

Yin said...

Didn't mind Disqus really though they sent the odd occasional email to ask me to login to something or other. But I never did and it never stopped me commenting so that was fine :)

I don't mind blogspot's comment layout either. All is good. As long as we get to comment still :)

Ah I have to say though I like that Disqus allowed you to respond to a particular comment but always thought that should our conversations carry on the indenting of the paragraphs would get quite alarming...

Maia said...

SHe's an amazing woman. My mother is a huge fan, and although her style is different, she has been much influenced by O'Keefe during the course of her career. We have often gone to paint and photograph at the Ghost Ranch where she once worked, North of Santa Fe, NM. Beautiful spot.

Bee said...

"they couldn't tell me how to paint mine" . . .
and from that, you can extrapolate to pretty much every aspect of life, I think

Didn't her stern, bony face become even more beautiful as she aged?

Fei An said...

I admire her so much...
It is my dream to go to the Ghost Ranch, North of Santa Fe, NM., as always. I don't know when I can make this trip, but soon or later.
I had been getting strength from her for a long while year ago.

Masonry repairs services said...

Disqus is a boon to Blog readers it accepts comments so fast.....

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