Landscape Re-Visit

One of the things I observed in studying

Georgia O'Keefe was that she often painted the

same landscape scene over and over again

searching for new ways to present it.

I find this a fascinating way to closely examine the elements.

So I've decided to re-visit some of the photo references I've used in past work and perhaps look at them slightly differently...at least in size and color if not a different representation all together.

My Father's World, tobacco barn

24 x 24, oil on cradled board

I love this lonely barn sitting atop a sloping hill with not much else around it. There is a bit of an implied path up to the opening so maybe it is still used for some work. It feels friendly and welcoming of visitors.  This kind of scenery makes me start writing mental stories about all that the place has seen and experienced.  My husband chose it to hang in a small condo we have.  

But a revisit on a larger canvas started out differently:

Note that it is no longer a square shape and that it appears even lonlier as there are no trees planned.  It feels "closed off" as you cannot see sky through the main door. And there is more emphasis on the drop off of the hill in the lower R corner.

Somehow I cannot get away from that red foreground!  I was actually trying to go from yellow around the color wheel through orange on its way to red....ahhh, but the painter loves reds apparently.

There is some amazing depth of texture in this piece which the former lacked.  And the colors are not blended but more abrupt in their changes.  And there is no worn path leading up to the open door while the sky is darker and less cheerful.  It feels sealed up and not welcoming to wanderers.

 24 x 30, oil on canvas, untitled

And...it is done!  Not a long way from the first version but changed enough to capture a different feeling.  Somehow the reds to yellows seem so vibrant that this barn feels proud, not lonely or abandoned.  Still standing with dignity (which could be a title?)  

I think my assignment now could be to do it all in blues and grays attempting to get a totally different mood...perhaps one of sorrow or loneliness, a feeling of abandonment and disrepair, aging?

Let's see where that might go.  Hope there are some folks interested in buying barns with personality!! Stand by...and thank you Ms. O'keefe for this exercise in studying the landscape.

REVEALING THE RED,

Cindy

O'Keefe Pilgrimage Complete

"Pilgrimage" is both a noun and a verb:

a journey, esp. a long one, made to some sacred place or shrine,

a long search made for exalted or sentimental reasons;

a quest.

When I set out almost a year ago on my "Georgia O'Keefe Pilgrimage" I had few expectations other than attempting to track as much of her art as possible and to learn as much as I could about her life.  Timing and a travel-loving husband made many exhibits accessible and, naturally, I gained much in unexpected ways (subjects for another blog!) After visits to five cities, many exhibits, numerous movies and several books, I am reporting on my final stop on the tour: the New York Botanical Gardens.

At the height of her popularity O'Keefe accepted an offer by the Hawaiian Pineapple Company (Dole) to spend 9 weeks at their expense in Hawaii.  The caveat was that they would have two paintings they could use for advertising.  A coup for them except that Ms O'Keefe was her usual stubborn self and refused to stay where they had contracted and also refused to be told what to paint (pineapples, duh!).  Taking a commercial assignment was seen by her husband Steiglitz as demeaning but she saw an opportunity to see a new part of the world.  And see it she did.

Flowers already spoke to her and in this new tropical climate she just could not get enough of all the gorgeous exotic varieties.

The scenery was unlike any other she had ever seen.  Here are four paintings she made of the same waterfall...a common exercise when she was intrigued by the landscape.  All four are now in separate collections but it is easy to see the similarities in them as she explored the subject.

After living with the field hands, traveling the islands and walking miles on the black beaches O'keefe had completed 20 paintings.  She offered the Pineapple Company one of a heliconia and one of a papaya tree.  They were, to put it mildly, furious and both parties to the contract felt miserable.

By the time she got back to New York she had decided to start a pineapple piece working from her memory when one arrived on her doorstep shipped by the Hawaiian Pineapple Company.  She finished her painting and they ended up using both in their advertising.  See below.

Once again Ms O'Keefe's star is shining brightly so the NYBG seized upon the idea of a gallery show of her work done in Hawaii while highlighting the plants in their conservatory which inspired and informed her work.  It was brilliant and a lovely marriage of the environment and her art.  It was another link in my study to understand her work and her motivation.

Even though it took 9 arduous days of trains and steam ships to reach Hawaii, Georgia returned after Stieglitz died.  It opened her world to new possibilities through travel and was the beginning of many exotic excursions she took world wide.  

Now that this pilgrimage has come to a close I hope to dive deep into thinking about what I have gained, not just in knowledge about her but in ways to apply the most intriguing aspects of her work (in my opinion) to my own.  More on this to come I promise.

From an exhibit of her clothing to spending time where she lived, from an NYC exhibit to a piece in Bentonville, AR this has been a compelling search for work done by an extraordinary woman.  While she had an uncanny (and ahead of her time) understanding of "branding" and personal presentation, she never succumbed to letting her own art conform to popular trends.  She exhibited an amazing personal strength in light of the many obstacles she had to work her way around in becoming who she knew she was.  

I'm almost sorry to see my list get all checked off...but not sorry to have made this fascinating journey.

MORE TO SHARE,

Cindy

Homage to Georgia

I left Ghost Ranch in awe of the scenery and

enamored with what Georgia O'Keefe painted there.  Of course I 

wanted to capture it all it but it is hard not to copy exactly what she depicted...

so I challenged myself to tackle a still life she did not paint.

Her land, her hills and valleys, her colors...how could anyone have a thing to add to the body of work O'Keefe left behind?  She documented Ghost Ranch in every season.  Was there no more to add?

The only answer would be to look differently and paint differently; not to copy what had been done but to see through her eyes what she might chose if painting today. I kept this thought in mind as I took photographs for future painting references.  

I decided to warm up with a natural still life that captured my eye, a threesome of the pine, juniper and scrub.  Ms O'Keefe would have centered in on one, but not me, I went for all three.

  

9" x 12" oil on canvas

The next day I began to flesh out the composition and realized just what a challenge it was going to be: everything was so red!  The deep red-orange of the ground was reflected on everything and it was going to be a challenge to capture the distinctions I wanted.  I was really determined to take your eye up every twist and turn of the ancient trunk (which was as graceful as a dancer) and still relate it to the scrub and the tree.  It was meditative to get lost in the weathered wood - quite zen; slowly I began to feel the movement and eye direction.  I also noted a need to change the horizon line which became important but not to the extent that I spent a lot of time matching the sky coloration.

O'Keefe's Backyard

9 x 12, oil

The photo is a little wonky but good enough.  Of course Georgia did not paint like this at all.  That was not the point.  I just enjoyed paying as close attention as she would have to something many people would have walked on by.  Three Graces? Perhaps.  Three generations? Maybe. I'm still working out why this scene attracted me but I do know that I felt a closeness to Ghost Ranch as I worked on it...like the Ranch muse sat on my shoulder for a little bit while I recalled how it all felt.

So there you have it.

GHOSTLY MEMORIES,

Cindy

Georgia O'Keefe & Abiqui

“You paint from your subject, not what you see…I rarely paint anything I don’t know very well. It was 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 colors 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.” 
― Georgia O'Keeffe

Ponder that quote for a moment and then come with me to Abiqui, a small rural village 53 miles north of Sante Fe, part time home of Georgia O'Keefe from 1950 until two years before she died in 1986.  If you have read anything about this artist you will recognize my photos for she loved this home and her rare, late portraits were made here.

Abiqui is so small that my husband and I stumbled upon it thinking we had taken a wrong turn.  We didn't even know it was the O'keefe home until we returned several days later under the auspices of the Home Tour which loaded into a van at the Abiqui Inn on the highway.  To visit the house is to understand much of her work.  It took her a determined 10 years to wrestle the property away from the Catholic diocese and another 3 to restore it to her liking.  She wanted it in part because it had "water rights" which meant that (still today) every Monday for 2 hours water could flow in and through her property allowing her to have a garden which bore the fresh foods she craved.

Georgia was clearly ahead of her time as her kitchen still has the early yogurt makers, food dehydrators, juicers and fresh herbs she insisted were better for one's health.  Her furnishings were spartan but utilitarian.  Once again I felt I walked on hallowed ground as the docent brought the artist to life for us.

Well into her eighth decade O'keefe climbed the ladder to her roof (and bid guests do the same) to watch the sunset and gaze upon her mountains.

This is the (in)famous black door she painted (flatly) many times.  She drew little distinction in the shadows except she did accentuate the stepping stones you see along the side of the wall.

If you have seen the cover of an old Life magazine with a story about her, you will recognize this exact corner where she was photographed sitting under the antlers (which she said she received from a native American Indian friend.)

We were asked not to take photographs indoors, a pity because it was fascinating to see.  As we moved from space to space it became so real that I would not have been surprised to see Ms O'keefe perched in the next room.  

Once again we were treated to several comparisons of the scenes from which she painted.  Here we see the exact two cottonwood trees she rendered in the oft seen painting the docent is holding.Standing outside the resemblance was clear, the pair being only slightly larger from growth.

I had to take this shot as it tickled my fancy to know that Georgia and I shared a common love of rocks and that neither of us can resist picking them up.  She had several collections both inside and out and it did my heart good to know that I was not alone in my compulsion to gather and display.

So my patient husband turns to me in the middle of a long highway and asks a very pertinent question:

After all this Georgia O'Keefe immersion,

what are you taking away for your own work?

Right to the heart, huh?

So here is my answer:

1- Simply (then amplify) - She did not paint every single pebble and dimple in the landscape.  What is the jist here, she seemed to ask, paint it clearly.  She often flattened it all out in an abstract sense (see quote above).

2- Zero in on one area - She was adept at focusing on one small area of something (like the center of a flower) ignoring the surroundings.  Look intimately at one detail.

3- Paint the same thing over and over again.  Exploit the subject.  Try it again and again to wring every bit of nuance and meaning one can from that same object.

4- Consider that inanimate objects have personality.  What is the message or feeling of that pair of trees or that mountain top.  She seemed to treat them as alive and communicative.

5- Finally, paint whatever has meaning to you.  Not what sells, not trending colors but whatever it is that you are willing to spend hours thinking about and repeating.

Those were my lessons...and easier said than done.  But verbalizing them will help me to remember.  And if I need extra help I am certain I still have some of that magic red dust in my shoes and backpack just waiting to be sprinkled around the studio.

LOVING THE LEARNING,

Cindy

Georgia O'Keefe Alive at Ghost Ranch

"The winds blow hard and dry on the high Sonoran

desert. I have red clay coating the insides of my lungs,

my snot is red ochre, my ears are lined with the dirt of ancient

buttes and my skin resembles that of a lizard.  

But like holy water from the River Jordan, this dust immersion has

transformed me.  It is Georgia's soil and I have come

to breath it, bathe in it and let my soul absorb it in any way that it can.  

I've made my long awaited pilgrimage to the land that O'Keefe loved

and painted --- I have seen the light."

Thus began my notes a day after arriving at Ghost Ranch in New Mexico.  My pilgrimage had begun in Winston Salem with the "Living Modern" exhibit at the Reynolda Museum.  I then gazed upon a crown jewel by her in the Crystal Bridges Museum.  We even camped at Palo Duro State Park where she loved to paint.  Now I was excited to spend several days at Ghost Ranch where O'keefe lived and painted for parts of every year from 1934 until frailty demanded a move to Sante Fe in 1984 (where she died at age 99 in 1986.)  She was a unique artist, a demanding, coy person with a wide streak of adventure.  She played it all by her rules and definitely close to the vest.  I was fascinated by her life and times and wanted to learn more.

If I had a fear of the place being too Disney-esque, it was quickly dispelled as we (finally) found the right hand turn which marked the entrance to the property.  Despite its wonderfully presented web site, Ghost Ranch still has that modest, rustic appeal that makes you believe those cattle rustlers (whose ghosts still haunt one of the cabins) could still be lurking on the grounds.  Now a site for education and retreats, the place offers several O'keefe themed "tours" as well as archeological and environmental ones. (The site has some of the oldest dinosaur fossils in the nation and has supplied several on-going study "blocks" to prestigious institutions. There is also a small but well presented museum that was built around one such 8 ton block so that visitors can observe the paleontologist working to uncover the remains of inhabitants from 225 million years ago. )

I signed up for everything with O'keefe's name attached and will share some of the highlights. Ironically we were there in time for an unexpected wave of cold and windy weather (and we were camping!) so both guides were more than creative in accommodating the challenges.  

It would take four hands to count the last time I was on a horse but....we were off to see the sun set over the lands Georgia painted, and to see them from her own backyard.

Since it was going to be too windy for our "guide" to talk en route we got a good education before leaving the barn of some of the sights we would cover.  No matter, I was thrilled just to be there.

    We had hiked up to this formation the day before but it was amazing to see it from a different angle (and very difficult to photograph on a horse that rarely stopped!)

The holy grail!  When O'keefe was able to acquire property on Ghost Ranch she built this home.  It is now owned by the O'Keefe Museum (along with the Abiqui home) and according to the estate terms no one is allowed into it for 100 years.  Word has it that Juan Hamilton (her assistant and executor) is softening and tours may be allowed soon.  The only downside (IMO) is that the traffic will surely change the face of the ranch.  So I was thrilled to be on a horse which meant I was high enough to peer over the wood fence and snap a photo.  Sacred moment.  

The sun was going down (in a cloudy haze) but the flat top mountain in the background is a landmark which can be seen for miles.  Pedernal Mountain is an icon for O'keefe lovers and since it was in her backyard she painted it many, many times.  In fact it is said she commented:

“It’s my private mountain. It belongs to me.
God told me if I painted it enough, I could have it.”
-Georgia O’Keeffe

(And it is where her ashes were scattered according to her wishes.)
The next morning we ventured out on foot with Karen who did an excellent job of teaching us about the geological landscape, the climate, the history and the plants on top of delivering a very thorough lesson on O'Keefe and her work.  Karen knew all kinds of lore about the ranch and it's past visitors (Lindberg's family came often) and protected every single struggling plant by showing us how and where to walk on the fragile red clay crust.

Look closely and you will see that the painting copy Karen is holding is exactly the scene before us, with the exception that a few of the tree scrubs are now larger.

Karen designed this walking tour so she spent hours tracking down the exact angles Georgia O'Keefe viewed something to paint it.  O'Keefe was of little help as she rarely named her work (and then called it something like "red hill with white top") and didn't leave many discerning notes.

We all marveled how just a slight turn could reveal the image and how little had changed since O'Keefe saw them herself.  It was fascinating to stand in a 360 degree theater of wonderful image and try to imagine how she narrowed her field down to a particular section.  Why did she choose this (or that?) we asked ourselves, what attracted her attention here...or here.  Naturally the artist in me was itching for a day to go out and try my hand.  But even if the weather had permitted our time at the ranch was coming to a close.  The best I could do would be to snap some photos and hope for studio time to tackle them.

So here is but a few I brought home to stimulate ideas.

I had one more stop on my pilgrimage and that was a tour of her home in Abiqui (a village so small that you meet elsewhere for a shuttle ride up so that cars won't disturb the residents.) My head was already spinning, I wasn't sure how much more I could take in but I was not about to miss the finale!
It was time, meanwhile, time to digest some of what I had learned.

Stay tuned.
COVERED IN RED DUST,
Cindy