Wit And Pistil
Georgia O'Keeffe is one of the greatest painters of her lifetime and her writings appeal to every good-natured soul looking for somewhere to nest:
My spring has been much better than every travelling springs of the last two years – I have been working – or trying to work my garden into a kind of permanent shape.. .. At the moment I have three rose bushes so full of red and yellow roses that they look on fire – they are really astonishing – You would really laugh to see them – two are very tall – the other smaller – It is a rose that is the reddest red on top and yellow underneath – then sometimes a few spots that are deep butter yellow – - and an odd iris – dirty lavender petals reaching up – a pale lavender mixed with yellow that greys it and yellow petals mixed with a little lavender drooping down – very handsome – There are lots of ordinary colors too – many kinds. Well – that’s my life
— Georgia O’Keeffe, letter to Anita Politzer, 1955
I do not like the idea of happiness – it is too momentary – I would say that I was always busy and interested in something – interest has more meaning to me than the idea of happiness.
We had a great time riding toward the sunset. He was little and dried up and weather beaten – but he likes living –
A flower is relatively small. Everyone has many associations with a flower - the idea of flowers. You put out your hand to touch the flower – lean forward to smell it – maybe touch it with your lips almost without thinking – or give it to someone to please them. Still – in a way – nobody sees a flower – really – it is so small – we haven’t time – and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.. ..’So I said to myself – I’ll paint what I see – what the flower is to me but I’ll paint it big and they will be surprised into taking time to look at it – I will make even busy New Yorkers take time to see what I see of flowers: ‘Well – I made you take time to look at what I saw and when you took time to really notice my flower, you hung all your own associations with flowers on my flower and you write about my flower as if I think and see what you think and see of the flower – and I don’t.
I like you much.
I like knowing the feel of your maleness
and your laugh
— Georgia to Jean Toomer, 1934
I am learning something myself — I don’t know exactly what it is —
but if I did — if I could put it clearly into form it would cure you
— Georgia O’Keeffe March 1926
"Bleeding" - Animal Collective (mp3)
"What Would I Want? Sky." - Animal Collective (mp3)
"On A Highway" - Animal Collective (mp3)
