Monday’s Muse: Georgia O’Keeffe

With a strong connection to nature; interested in everything from blossoming fruits to the decay of bones, painter Georgia O’Keeffe is celebrated for her large-format paintings of landscapes and flowers. But what I admire most about Georgia O’Keeffe is how open she seemed about her processes and the strength she found in understanding and sharing them…

“It was in the fall of 1915 that I first had the idea that what I had been taught was of little value to me except for the use of my materials as a language. There was no one around to look at what I was doing – no one interested – no one to say anything about it one way or another. I was alone and singularly free, working into my own unknown – no one to satisfy except myself.” 

Referred to as a loner, O’Keeffe explored her beloved land of New Mexico (often in her Ford Model A), collecting rocks and bones from the desert floor, and going on camping and rafting trips down the Colorado River. Of New Mexico she says; “Such a beautiful, untouched lonely feeling place, such a fine part of what I call the ‘Faraway’. It is a place I have painted before … even now I must do it again.”  

There’s a beautiful quote where O’Keeffe explains that the hills in the distance look as though they’re painted especially for her, but on attempting to paint these hills, she realises that they are absolutely not. A telling statement of her admiration and bewilderment for the ever-changing, unattainable divinity of the natural world.