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.