Ready to Receive the Gifts of Georgia O'Keeffe

 

Ready to Receive the Gifts of Georgia O'Keeffe

 

                You may hear Georgia O’Keeffe’s name and think you know her. Possibly you associate her iconic name with paintings of giant flowers, sullen animal skulls, sprawling landscapes. You may even find hidden meanings in her work. Whatever your impression of her, O’Keeffe abstractly painted representations of real objects, something that seems to me like a contradiction in itself. 

                Most people, even those who are generally unfamiliar with her, will tell you that Georgia O’Keeffe was an artist and a true individual. Her art seems to humbly detail the architecture of a thing or idea, even as she graced blank canvases with “simple” celestial objects, seashells, trees, fruit, sky and leaves. Her still life paintings are anything but still.

                O’Keeffe was also a writer, exchanging thousands of letters with her good friends. Letter writing can be a rarity today, where tight schedules leave little room for such courtesy and leisure. Gadgets monopolize our children’s correspondences, but most of us can recall exchanging hand-penned letters with someone at some point in time. A selection of O’Keeffe’s letters written to artists, critics and friends are featured in a book, titled Georgia O’Keeffe: Art and Letters (ISBN 0-8212-1686-4), along with an equal number of her artistic works. She was, and still is, a treasure waiting to be found.

                The last time she came to visit us in Western New York, her reality-based landscapes at the Albright-Knox in Buffalo handed me something I still can’t explain and I wrote like mad... Have you ever received something from a painting? I am sure it happens all the time: the individual, the writer or artist becomes more complete, or less complete, for being exposed to varying stimuli. Art and all creative things correlate in some way to how one looks at a thing or an idea. Are not humans, in some way, all inherently creative? Whether you consider yourselves creative or not, are you not bored without the introduction of others’ ideas? The entertainment industry thrives!

                O’Keeffe’s latest visit is to the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester. The Mississippi Museum of Art has organized this touring exhibit of her works, showcasing the importance of materials in painting and the overall awareness of materials by the artist and those around her. O’Keeffe not only painted but worked with pastels, charcoal, pencil… remarkably controlling whatever medium she worked with. Her still life and abstract paintings can be easily mistaken for each other, because of the depth and detail she incorporated into them.

                As a writer, I plan to enter the O’Keeffe M.A.G. exhibit with great expectation of inspiration. I will lug along my open heart and mind… pondering on my long car ride how I should approach more in this life as lightly. As creative souls, don’t we tend to close ourselves from our local “world”, while it waits with much to offer?

                I am told there are striking black and white photos of the artist scattered through this exhibit, taken by both her partner Alfred Stieglitz and another photographer Todd Weber. Surely there is text on display to explain each piece. And somehow the gallery brings it all together into a new entity: the exhibit, aptly titled Color and Conservation.  When I walk the gallery this November, I do so with my hands out, palms up, ready to receive whatever these timeless works have left to give… The experience of looking at these works alone is quite a gift. Will you? Advanced tickets are strongly recommended.  Ending December 31st, this visit by Georgia O’Keeffe is truly a gift to our area.

                For those unable to attend, books about the artist are available at the Perry Public Library and Burlingham Books, both located on the east side of Main Street, in downtown Perry.      

 

Credits: Orig. publ. in Nov. 2006 issue of The Other Herald

Reviews

[Salvatore Buttaci]

Congratulations for winning the How-I-Write Contest!

Sal

[Frances O'Neill]

How well the artiste made you write, well what more was there to be said other than it gives or gave you inspiration and encouragement. This is also a wonderful article written of a well-known artist and authoress. A well-written article!

[Suzanne Sherif]

I think this is an excellent bit of advice on finding creative inspiration.