A video (5min 5sec) look at the life and artistic brilliance of Georgia O'Keeffe. Ranked among the vanguard of modern art, her paintings vividly portrayed the power and emotion of objects of nature. During the 1920s, she explored this theme in her paintings of flowers. Her purpose was to convey that nature in all its beauty was as powerful as the widespread industrialization of the period.
After spending a summer at Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu, New Mexico, she began a life-long love affair with the area. Enthralled by the barren landscape and expansive skies she explored these subjects in her paintings. Just as with the flowers, she painted the desert area magnifying and capturing the stillness and remoteness, while expressing a sense of beauty that lies within the desert. Her paintings have become synonymous with Ghost Ranch, introducing the area to the rest of the world.
Orginally broadcast on New Mexico PBS station KNME-TV.
Nobody
sees a flower, really, it is so small. We haven't time - and to see
takes time like to have a friend takes time.
If
I could paint the flower exactly as I see it no one would see what I
see because I would paint it small like the flower is small. So I said
to myself - I'll paint what I see - what the flower is to me but I'll
paint it big and they will be surprised into taking time to look at it
- I will make even busy New Yorkers take time to see what I see of
flowers.
...Well, I made you take time to look at what I saw
and when you took time to really notice my flower you hung all your own
associations with flowers on my flower and you write about my flower as
if I think and see what you think and see of the flower - and I don't.
