At the Museum

While in Santa Fe, we stopped through the Georgia O’Keefe Museum, a personal favorite. Of particular note, there was work from her brief stint as an art teacher, at what was then West Texas Normal College — I think that was the name.

I will forever be haunted by a Midwestern twang drawling out, “Those flowers are just evil,” in reference to some of the O’Keefe material. To me? Highly erotic. There’s a fluid dynamic, sexual without being overtly so, and it could just be me. Sensual. That’s the word.

There was a quote above some of the paintings, something about not being able to capture what she really sees, but how trying is important. I know that feeling.

Then, there was a series, started with fuzzy watercolor, called “Morning Star,” which is probably Venus.

1916.

The images progressed, over a two–year span, showing the way she played with the colors, the shapes, watching as the original image mutated in abstractions. There were a half dozen images, paintings, eerily similar and yet quite distinct from each other.

O‘Keefe’s early years in Canyon, TX. I’m not even sure what that college is currently called.

At the Museum