Lightly Child, Lightly

The wind is careless—

uncertain—

I like the wind—

it seems more like me than anything else—

I like the way it blows things around—roughly—even meanly—

then the next minute seems to love everything—some days is amazingly quiet.

—  Georgia O’Keeffe, in a letter to Alfred Stieglitz on October 1, 1917 in: ”My Faraway One. Selected Letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz. Volume 1, 1915–1933

 


Notes:

Few lines and blocks of color carry an explosive and mystical power

georgia-o-keefe-red-canna

It is interesting to observe that what (Georgia) O’Keeffe wanted to achieve was achieved from the start, and has hardly changed— the reducing of a landscape, a flower, or whatever to essence, the isolation of a powerful image which she then enlarges. Sometimes the effect is merely pictorial, and becomes banal and even sentimental (the famous skull with roses), but at her best a very few lines and blocks of color carry an explosive and mystical power. These are paintings that expand the mind, and I imagine living with one very happily.

~ May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude


Source: The Red List: Georgia O’Keeffe, Red Canna, 1924

 

The morning is the best time

sky-above-clouds-IV-Georgia-O'Keeffesky-above-the-clouds-IV-Georgia-O'Keeffe

The dirt resists you.  It is very hard to make the earth your own.  I’ve done much less to try to make it mine.  All my association with it is a kind of freedom.  Yet it’s hard to live at the ranch.  When I first came here I had to go 70 miles on a dirt road for supplies.  Nobody would go by in two weeks.  I thought the ranch would be good for me because nothing can grow here and I wouldn’t be able to use up my time gardening.  But I got tired of canned vegetables so now I grow everything I need for the year at Abiquiu.  I like to get up when the dawn comes.  The dogs start talking to me and I like to make a fire and maybe some tea and then sit in bed and watch the sun come up.  The morning is the best time, there are no people around.  My pleasant disposition likes the world with nobody in it.

~ Georgia O’Keeffe


Credits: Quote – Thank you Rob Firchau @ The Hammock Papers. Image: Sky Above The Clouds IV by Georgia O’Keeffe from mbell

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