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Georgia O'Keeffe
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„As I opened the door — I heard cattle — many — in the pens over by the track — lowing — I wonder if you ever heard a whole lot of cattle lowing — it sounds different here — too — just ground and sky — and the lowing cattle — you hardly see — either them or the pens — the pens are of weather beaten boards — take on the color of the ground it seems — I like it and I don’t like it — its like music — I made up a tune this morning — Well — I heard the cattle — as I opened the door — and I liked it and I didn’t liked it — then I read your letter as I walked to breakfast — a great letter — Anita“
„Today I walked into the sunset — to mail some letters —… But some way or other I didn’t seem to like the redness much so after I mailed the letters I walked home — and kept walking – The Eastern sky was all grey blue — bunches of clouds — different kinds of clouds — sticking around everywhere and the whole thing — lit up — first in one place — then in another with flashes of lightning — sometimes just sheet lightning — and some times sheet lightning with a sharp bright zigzag flashing across it -. I walked out past the last house — past the last locust tree — and sat on the fence for a long time — looking — just looking at — the lightning — you see there was nothing but sky and flat prairie land — land that seems more like the ocean than anything else I know — There was a wonderful moon. Well I just sat there and had a great time by myself — Not even many night noises — just the wind —… I wondered what you were doing – It is absurd the way I love this country — Then when I came back — it was funny — roads just shoot across blocks anywhere — all the houses looked alike — and I almost got lost — I had to laugh at myself — I couldn’t tell which house was home – I am loving the plains more than ever it seems — and the SKY — Anita you have never seen SKY — it is wonderful“
„Last night I couldn’t sleep till after four in the morning – I had been out to the canyon all afternoon – till late at night – wonderful color – I wish I could tell you how big – and with the night the colors deeper and darker – cattle on the pastures in the bottom looked line little pinheads. I can understand Pa Dow painting his pretty colored canyons – it must have been a great temptation – no wonder he fell. Then the moon rose right up out of the ground after we got out on the plains again – battered a little where he bumped his head but enormous – There was no wind – it was just big and still – so very big and still – long legged jack rabbits hopping across in front of the light as we passed – A great place to see the night time because there is nothing else.“
„.. About my work Howard – I always have two opinions – one is my way of seeing it for myself – and for myself I am never satisfied – never really – I almost always fail – always I think – now next time I can do it – Maybe that is part of what keeps one working – I can also look at myself – by that I mean my work from the point of view of the looking public – and that is the way I look at it when I think of showing. I have always first had a show for myself – and made up my mind – then after that it doesn’t matter to me very much what anyone else say – good or bad.“
„Those perilous climbings [with her sister Claudia, in the Palo Duro Canyon, 1916] were frightening, but it was wonderful to me and not like anything I had known before. The fright of the day was still with me in the night and I would often dream that the foot of my bed rose straight up into the air — then just as it was to fall I would wake up. Many drawings came from days like that, and later some oil paintings.“
„It seems odd to think of you at Lake George tonight – I can smell the outdoors – and hear it – and see the stars – So often before I went to bed at night I would walk out toward the barn and look at the sky in the open space. There was no light little house – there were no people – there was only the night – I will never go back again – maybe to stand just for a moment where I put the little bit that was left of Alfred [ Alfred Stieglitz, her husband] after he was cremated – but I think not even for that. I put him where he would hear the lake.“
„I had wanted to talk with you about lots of things… I am anxious to get to work for the fall – it is always my best time I had one particular painting – that tree in Lawrence’s front yard as you see it when you lie under it on the table – with stars – it looks as tho it is standing on its head – I wanted you to see it..“
„Equal Rights and Responsibilities is a basic idea that would have very important psychological effects on women and men from the time they are born. It could very much change the girl child’s idea of her place in the world… It seems to me very important to the idea of true democracy – to my country – and to the world eventually – that all men and women stand equal under the sky – I wish that you could be with us in this fight..“
„Later I had two green ones [alligator pears] — not so perfect. I painted them several times [c. 1920] when the men [American modernist artists, a. o. Marsden Hartley ] didn’t think much of what I was doing. They were all discussing Paul Cézanne, with long involved remarks about the ‘plastic quality’ of his form and colour. I was an outsider. My colour and form were not acceptable. It had nothing to do with Cézanne or anything else. I didn’t understand what they were talking about why one colour was better than another… Years later when I finally got to Cézanne’s Mont Sainte-Victoire in the south of France, I remember sitting there thinking, ‘How could they attach all those analytical remarks to anything he did with that mountain?“
„The large ‘White Flower’ [Georgia painted in 1929] with the golden heart is something I have to say about White – quite different from what White has been meaning to me. Whether the flower or the color is the focus I do not know. I do know that the flower is painted large to convey to you my experience of the flower – and what is my experience of the flower if it is not color.“
„I painted ‘the Shelton with Sunspots’ [New York], in 1926. I went out one morning to look at it before I started to work and there was the optical illusion of a bite out of one side of the tower made by the sun, with sunspots against the building and against the sky. I made that painting beginning at the upper left and went off at the lower right without going back.“
„Anita – I am so glad I’m out here – I can’t tell you how much I like it. I like the plains – and I like the work [her painting] – everything is so ridiculously new – and there is something about it that just makes you glad you’re living here – You understand – there is nothing here – so maybe there is something wrong with me that I am liking it so much.“
„I don’t remember where I picked up the head — or the hollyhock. Flowers were planted among the vegetables in the garden between the house and the hills and I probably picked the hollyhock one day as I walked past. My paintings sometimes grow by pieces from what is around… I have used these things to say what is to me the wideness and wonder of the world as I live in it.“
„Walked way out in the plains in the moonlight – there is no wind – so still – And so light – I wish you could see it – with miss Hibbits – she was born in Ireland –… The plains start right across the roads from this house – there is just nothing out there – she says she has often ridden till ten or eleven o’clock at night – alone – nothing to be afraid of – because there is nothing out there – Its great – I am not even having the smallest wish for N. Y. …“
„After I had been in Canada painting the wide white barns along the Saint Lawrence river, I thought how different the life of the Canadian farmer was from life in Cebolla. So I painted [in 1945] the Cebolla church which is so typical of that difficult life. I have always thought it one of my very good paintings, though its message is not as pleasant as many of the others.“
„Color is one of the great things in the world that makes life worth living to me and as I have come to think of painting it is my effort to create an equivalent with paint color for the world – life as I see it.“
„Bement [her art teacher] told me things to read. He told me of exhibitions to go and see [c. 1917]…. the two books that he told me to get were Jeromy Eddy ‘Cubists and Post-impressionism’ and Kandinsky ‘On the Spiritual of Art’… It was some time before I really begun to use the ideas. I didn’t start at until I was down in Carolina — alone — thinking things out for myself.“
„There are people who have made me see shapes — and others I thought of a great deal, even people I have loved, who make me see nothing. I have painted portraits that to me are almost photographic. I remember hesitating to show the paintings, they looked so real to me. But they have passed into the world as abstractions – no one seeing what they are.“
„I hate flowers — I paint them because they’re cheaper than models and they don’t move!“
„The plains are very wonderful now – like green gold and yellow gold and red gold – in patches – and the distance blue and pink and lavender strips and spots – May sounds like a Dow Canyon but really its wonderful – specially in the evening – I usually go alone – Yesterday rode home on a hay wagon – no it was clover with a funny old man – His mules and wagon blocked my path so we started talking… We had a great time riding toward the sunset. He was little and dried up and weather beaten – but he likes living..“
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