She Could Cure You
She was famous when I met her, but that did not matter. She did not know who the celebrities were. She did not care for famous people. Once while traveling in France, her friend Mary Callery wanted to introduce her to Picasso. She said, "But Mary, I don't speak French and he doesn't speak English. What would be the sense in meeting him if we couldn't speak!"
- Jack Cowart
The writings of Georgia O'Keeffe 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
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.
Dear Anita
— aren't you funny to wonder if I like your letters. I was walking up from the little bandbox post office with the mail under my arm — reading your letter this afternoon — and when I came to the part telling what Stieglitz said about "its worth going to hell to get there" — I laughed aloud — and dropped all the things under my arm
I had gone for the mail because I had worked till — what I thought didnt count — so it wasn't any use to keep on — I read your letter twice then went for a walk with about eight of the girls — it was supposed to be a run — and they were all very much astonished that none of them could keep up with me — I can run at a jog trot almost as easily as I can walk — and most girls cant you know.
We explored woods and country and found the quaintest little deserted house imaginable with wonderful big pink and white and yellow roses climbing on it — and funny little garden effects — all surrounded by great tall pines
It would have been too cold to go without a coat if we hadn't run most of the way — whenever they had breath 
— so you know how great it felt
I came back and read your letter again
Anita — do you know — I believe I would rather have Stieglitz like something - anything I had done — than anyone else I know of — I have always thought that — If I ever make anything that satisfies me even ever so little — I am going to show it to him to find out if its any good — Don't you often wish you could make something he might like?
Still Anita — I dont see why we ever think of what other think of what we do — no matter who they are — isn't it enough just to express yourself — If it were to a particular person as music often is — of course we would like them to understand — at least a little — but why should we care about the rest of the crowd — If I make a picture to you why should I care if anyone else likes it or is interested in it or not — I am getting a lot of fun out of slaving by myself — The disgusting part is that I so often find myself saying — what would you — or Dorothy — or Mr. Martin or Mr. Dow — or Mr. Bement — or somebody — most anybody — say if they saw it — It is curious — how one works for flattery —
Rather it is curious how hard it seems to be for me right now not to cater to someone when I work — rather than just to express myself
During the summer — I didn't work for anyone — I just sort of went mad usually after the winter — but — now — remember Ive only been working a week — I find myself catering to opinion again — and I think I'll just stop it.
Anita — I just want to tell you lots of things — we all stood and listened to the wind way up in the tops of the pines this afternoon — and I wished you could hear it — I just imagined how your eyes would shine and how you would love it — I haven't found anyone yet who likes to live like we do —
October 11th 1915
Dear Anita
Did you ever have something to say and feel as if the whole side of the wall wouldn't be big enough to say it on and then sit down on the floor and try to get it on to a sheet of charcoal paper — and when you had put it down look at it and try to put into words what you have been trying to say with just marks — and then — wonder what it all is anyway — Ive been crawling around on the floor till I have cramps in my feet — one creation looks too much like T.C. the other too much like soft soap - Maybe the fault is with what Im trying to say — I don't seem to be able to find words for it —
I always have a hard time finding word for anything —
Anita — I wonder if I am a raving lunatic for trying to make these things — You know — I don't care if I am — but I do wonder sometimes.
I wish I could see you — I cant tell you how much I wish it. Im going to try some more — I turned them to the wall while I wrote this — One I made this afternoon — the other tonight — they always seem different when you have been away a little while. I hope you love me a little tonight — I seem to want everybody in the world to — Anita.
I put this in an envelope — stretched and laughed.
Its so funny that I should write you because I want to. I wonder if many people do.... You see — I would go in and talk to you if I could — but I hate to be completely outdone by a little thing like distance.
appended to a letter to Alfred Stieglitz
February 1st 1916
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 pasture in the bottom looked like little pin heads — 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 on the plains again — battered a little where he bumped his head but enormous — There was no mind — it was just big and still — long legged jack rabbits hopping across in front of the light as we passed — A great place to see the nighttime because there is nothing else
Then I came home — not sleepy so I made a pattern of some flowers I had picked —
They were like water lilies — white ones — with the quality of smoothness gone
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
March 1926
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