Monday, September 25, 2017

GEORGIA O'KEEFE


On our recent backroads trip through New Mexico
we did a thing we have never done but always wanted to do

we took a few days to learn more about this Iconic American Artist

spent her last years in
and at her home at the 

she was born in Wisconsin 
she taught art in the Amarillo schools system and later at West Texas A&M University

I find her gloriously beautiful

her home in Abiquiu is now a historic landmark and one of the most amazing places I have been in my life.  Since our return...I cannot read enough about her or look at photos of her and her home

She died in 1986 at the age of 98 and her home is exactly as it was the day she left to go to the hospital in Santa Fe, where she later died.

Her estate was worth 70 million dollars, yet the favorite things in her home were rocks and bones

she was a minimalist

while I am not all that crazy about her art, I am 100% crazy about her
she is fascinating to learn about
she married 


our tour guide told us that after his death she was never intimate with anyone ever again
many believe she was a lesbian, but he assured us there was absolutely no evidence of this 

I am so intrigued with a person who says
I will love only you until death
and mean it
she lived alone in New Mexico for many many years loving him only
how tragic and bold and soulful and refreshing 
to love so deeply that being alone is righteous


 she loved the earth and sky 
everywhere you looked...she collected rocks

rocks and rocks and rocks

and rocks
her window sills were filled with rocks

this is the view from her bedroom window
her bedroom had a bed and a table and a chair and a lamp

this is 
she painted this mountain over and over and over
she said that if she painted it enough God would give it to her


she painted the same things over and over in different ways
this is the door that caused her to purchase this home
she bought her lifelong home because of a door

this is a painting of a road she could see from her bedroom
our guide (he's an art professor) is from the family that took care of her in her later years
he was also very inspiring and I believed he knows her very well from old stories and study

a simple way to make shade in the hot New Mexico sun
her simple way of life is something I keep thinking of
our guide told us the day before there were HGTV hosts on his tour,  and they remarked how she was living vogue before it was vogue...bulb hanging from the wire vogue

I adore my  man...I always have to chuckle at his bright vacation clothes
I guess he gets tired of dark work suits and lets it go...he's like a desert flower or a little yellow bird
I think if Georgia could see him from her window...she would paint him







2 comments:

Anajá Schmitz said...

Que bela viagem. Amei conhecer a artista Georgia. Foi amor por isso ela não quis mais casar. Que vida maravilhosa Georgia teve.
Viajar é a melhor coisa da vida. Gostei do look de seu marido. Alfredo meu marido quando viajamos, ele gosta de ficar a vontade também.
Hugs e felicidades.

R's Rue said...

Beautiful.