Georgia O'Keeffe: Thing

“I've been absolutely terrified every moment of my life and I've never let it keep me from doing a single thing that I wanted to do.”

Georgia O'Keeffe

Life

“Nothing is less real than realism. Details are confusing. It is only by selection, by elimination, by emphasis, that we get at the real meaning of things.”

Georgia O'Keeffe

“I think it's so foolish for people to want to be happy. Happy is so momentary--you're happy for an instant and then you start thinking again. Interest is the most important thing in life; happiness is temporary, but interest is continuous.”

Georgia O'Keeffe

Life , People , Thinking , Happiness

“The abstraction is often the most definite form for the intangible thing in myself that I can only clarify in paint. … I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way — things I had no words for.”

Georgia O'Keeffe

1970 - 1986, Some Memories of Drawings (1976)
Context: It is surprising to me to see how many people separate the objective from the abstract. Objective painting is not good painting unless it is good in the abstract sense. A hill or tree cannot make a good painting just because it is a hill or a tree. It is lines and colours put together so that they say something. For me that is the very basis of painting. The abstraction is often the most definite form for the intangible thing in myself that I can only clarify in paint. … I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way — things I had no words for.<!-- Also quoted in Georgia O’Keeffe: Nature and Abstraction (2007), edited by Richard Marshall, p. 13

Color , Way , Painting

“Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant, there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing--and keeping the unknown always beyond you.”

Georgia O'Keeffe

Quote in a letter to Sherwood Anderson, October 1923; as quoted in Georgia O'Keeffe: A Life, Roxana Robinson, University Press of New England, 1999
1917 - 1929
Context: I have been thinking of what you say about form... I feel that a real living form is the natural result of the individual’s effort to create the living thing out of the adventure of his spirit into the unknown.... and from that experience comes the desire to make the unknown known. By unknown I mean the thing that means so much to the person that he want to put it down - clarify something he feels but does not clearly understand... Making the unknown known.... if you stop to think of form as form you are lost.

“I have things in my head that are not like what anyone taught me — shapes and ideas so near to me, so natural to my way of being and thinking.”

Georgia O'Keeffe

Way , Idea , Nature , Thinking

“I had wanted to talk with you about lots of things... I am anxious to get to work for the fall – it is always my best time I had one particular painting – that tree in Lawrence's front yard as you see it when you lie under it on the table – with stars – it looks as tho it is standing on its head – I wanted you to see it..”

Georgia O'Keeffe

In a letter to Mabel Dodge Luhan, Taos, August 1929; as quoted in Voicing our visions, – Writings by women artists, ed. Mara R. Witzling, Universe New York, 1991, p. 226
1917 - 1929

Lie , Star , Tree , Time

“I thought you could write something about me that men can't – What I want written – I do not know – I have no definite idea of what it should be. – but a woman who has lived many things and who sees lines and colors as an expression of living – might say something that a man can't – I feel there is something unexplored about woman that only a woman can explore – Men have done all they can do about it. Does that mean anything to you – or doesn't it?”

Georgia O'Keeffe

In a letter to Mabel Dodge Luhan, New York 1925; as quoted in Voicing our visions, – Writings by women artists, ed. Mara R. Witzling, Universe New York, 1991, p. 224
1920s

Men , Color , Feeling , Idea

“Color is one of the great things in the world that makes life worth living to me and as I have come to think of painting it is my effort to create an equivalent with paint color for the world – life as I see it.”

Georgia O'Keeffe

1930s

Life , World , Color , Thinking

“Today I walked into the sunset — to mail some letters —... But some way or other I didn't seem to like the redness much so after I mailed the letters I walked home — and kept walking - The Eastern sky was all grey blue — bunches of clouds — different kinds of clouds — sticking around everywhere and the whole thing — lit up — first in one place — then in another with flashes of lightning — sometimes just sheet lightning — and some times sheet lightning with a sharp bright zigzag flashing across it -. I walked out past the last house — past the last locust tree — and sat on the fence for a long time — looking — just looking at — the lightning — you see there was nothing but sky and flat prairie land — land that seems more like the ocean than anything else I know — There was a wonderful moon. Well I just sat there and had a great time by myself — Not even many night noises — just the wind —... I wondered what you were doing - It is absurd the way I love this country — Then when I came back — it was funny — roads just shoot across blocks anywhere — all the houses looked alike — and I almost got lost — I had to laugh at myself — I couldn't tell which house was home - I am loving the plains more than ever it seems — and the SKY — Anita you have never seen SKY — it is wonderful”

Georgia O'Keeffe

Canyon, Texas (September 11, 1916), pp. 183-184
1915 - 1920, Letters to Anita Pollitzer' (1916)

Love , Way , Home , Tree

“Bement [her art teacher] told me things to read. He told me of exhibitions to go and see [c. 1917].... the two books that he told me to get were Jeromy Eddy 'Cubists and Post-impressionism' and Kandinsky 'On the Spiritual of Art'… It was some time before I really begun to use the ideas. I didn't start at until I was down in Carolina — alone — thinking things out for myself.”

Georgia O'Keeffe

1970 - 1986, Some Memories of Drawings (1976)

Books , Art , Idea , Thinking

“The meaning of a word — to me — is not as exact as the meaning of a colour. Colours and shapes make a more definite statement than words. I write this [1974] because such odd things have been done about me with words. I have often been told what to paint … I make this effort because no one else can know how my paintings happen.”

Georgia O'Keeffe

Quote, 1914, from: Foreword
1970s, Some Memories of Drawings (1976)

Effort , Painting

“I find that I have painted my life, things happening in my life — without knowing. After painting the Shell and shingle [c, 1926] many times, I did a misty landscape of the mountain across the lake, and the mountain became the shape of the shingle — the mountain I saw out my window, the shingle on the table in my room. I did not notice that they were alike for a long time after they were painted.”

Georgia O'Keeffe

1970s, Some Memories of Drawings (1976)

Life , Mountain , Time , Painting

“I don't remember where I picked up the head — or the hollyhock. Flowers were planted among the vegetables in the garden between the house and the hills and I probably picked the hollyhock one day as I walked past. My paintings sometimes grow by pieces from what is around... I have used these things to say what is to me the wideness and wonder of the world as I live in it.”

Georgia O'Keeffe

1970 - 1986, Some Memories of Drawings (1976)

World , Flowers , Past , Painting

“Anita, I have just come the comforting conclusion that I'll have to paint acres and acres of water color landscapes before I will look for even a passably fair one. After about ten attempts — I certainly have to laugh at myself — It's like feeling around in the dark — thought I knew what I was going to try to do but I find I don't — and guess I'll only find out by slaving away at it. I feel — like a wreck — Have been working like mad all day — and you know how deliciously disgusted with every thing one can be — when the sun begins to go down — and one has been working ones head off all day. It gives me the sensation I used to have when I was a youngster and was going away from home on the train — It is a very special sort of sick feeling.”

Georgia O'Keeffe

New York City (February 1916), p. 145
1910s, Letters to Anita Pollitzer' (1916)

Color , Feeling , Home , Water

“The unexplainable thing in nature that makes me feel the world is big fat beyond my understanding — to understand maybe by trying to put it into form. To find the feeling of infinity on the horizon line or just over the next hill.”

Georgia O'Keeffe

1970s, Some Memories of Drawings (1976)

World , Feeling , Understanding , Nature

“I have been thinking of what you say about form... I feel that a real living form is the natural result of the individual’s effort to create the living thing out of the adventure of his spirit into the unknown.... and from that experience comes the desire to make the unknown known. By unknown I mean the thing that means so much to the person that he want to put it down - clarify something he feels but does not clearly understand... Making the unknown known.... if you stop to think of form as form you are lost.”

Georgia O'Keeffe

Quote in a letter to Sherwood Anderson, October 1923; as quoted in Georgia O'Keeffe: A Life, Roxana Robinson, University Press of New England, 1999
1917 - 1929

Understanding , Personality , Nature , Thinking