“We drove out into the White Hills—dug a hole under a small sized cedar bush and put my beautiful dog into it and covered him with earth and many rocks. I like to think that probably he goes running and leaping through the White Hills alone in the night.”
Georgia O’Keeffe - excerpt from
Letters of NoteHello uncultured swine,
A letter written by the famous painter of nature, Georgia O’Keeffe, landed in my inbox the other week with spine-tingling relevance. My evil, demonic, aloof, beloved cat, Ra - the 9kg sun God - died Thursday last. I’ve been falling asleep cuddling the jumper I wore when I last held him. The minutes feel long. I’m heartbroken.
I was always going to write about O’Keeffe and kismet tells me she’s a good ode to him. Because, although I loved my gargantuan cat very much, he could be a bit of a
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C*nt? or O’Keeffe
Sat amongst the jagged, burnt orange landscape of New Mexico, a slip of a woman in a white button down closely observes her surroundings. Georgia O’Keeffe with her canvas plein air, existed outside of twentieth century art movements, gender conventions and cultural hubs. Or rather, O’Keeffe just existed outside.
She was an inspired painter of landscapes, still life and macro images of nature. Much of O’Keeffe’s art reproduced her immediate environment, from the bald knolls of America’s Bible Belt in her youth, to the sky-scrapers during her stint in New York City. But it was the desert landscape that most captivated her, inspiring a move to New Mexico, and her well-known Ghost Ranch series which included works such as Summer Days (below).
What a talent she has for capturing the desert. And that talent should be her enduring legacy, I hazard to guess this was O’Keeffe’s ambition as a rare, respected female artist. But no. In the gutters our heads do live and, from what I can tell, it’s her flower watercolours that are etched into our collective memory. Georgia O’, we love that you loved the wild wild west, but nothing beats the desert heat like a wet ass-
In 1920’s New York City, O’Keeffe completed her flower series, famously using a magnifying glass to get intimate with her subject, resulting in a more ~ abstract~ image. Paintings such as Series I White & Blue Flower Shapes (below) hushed onlookers as they contemplated the art (oh the art), the lines (what lines they are!), the colours (very affecting) and if anyone else saw a c*nt?
The work was immediately sexualised by press and critics alike. Paul Rosenfield, journalist and apparent expert on women, suggested her work was, “[the] essence of very womanhood” (pop quiz Paul: where’s the clitoris?). Others said the watercolours were of a ‘sexual nature’. That these images were intended to look like vulva’s was denied by O’Keeffe, who insisted she just liked flowers (much like how I changed my Hinge preferences to ‘woman seeking man or woman’ because I prefer their pictures…).
The response to O’Keeffe’s flower series touches on an issue oft referred to in art (and oft referred to in Dis Content) - the inherent sexualisation of anything ‘feminine’. Because included in her 200 odd piece series of flower paintings are paintings that look - like flowers. It’s gendered to assume a sexual meaning when one wasn’t clearly intended; to see a painting of a flower and imbue it with the sex of its maker. O’Keeffe, an avid gardener, probably did just like flowers.
To open a can of beans (so to speak) by looking at the broader context to deride alternative meaning could be a symptom of my baked in misogyny, but I prefer to look at it as a Gaylor bias. O’Keeffe was a pioneering feminist who publicly disapproved of gender discrimination and was heavily involved in the women’s suffragette movement. She pushed for female artists to be appreciated in equal stead as male artists and subverted women’s fashion, opting to wear gender neutral clothing as early as the 1920s (hot!).
O’Keeffe was also sexually liberal, participating in a - toxic but - open relationship with photographer husband, Alfred Stieglitz. In images taken by Stieglitz around the time of his wife’s flower series (above), it’s clear sensuality wasn’t obscure to O’Keeffe. Her sexuality has since been disputed posthumously (by more people than me!) when, after her husbands death (spoilers), she hunkered down in the desert amongst the company of women (notes taken).
Knowing this, is it still foolish to wonder if a painting like Series I White & Blue Flower Shapes wasn’t a slight wink? That O’Keeffe may have been drawn to these abstractions and magnifications because of their similarities to vulvas? And even if she wasn’t the gardening cottage-core bisexual artist of our dreams, her work discovered forms familiar to women and said without apparent sexual agenda, ‘isn’t this shape beautiful?’ Which is a liberation within itself.
Dis Content-mas Movie Advent Calendar
High brow Christmas Art does not exist. Nor should it. So to drizzle a little fun over the lead up to Christmas, I’ll be giving a naughty or nice on some of the shittiest Christmas movies/cooking specials the streaming services have to offer and welcome you to join (unless you have a life (if so, please tell me where to get one)).
You’ll notice the last week leading to Christmas is WALL TO WALL good movies, that is because there will be no notes! I’ll be having a much unearned break until January sometime?
Until then,
C U Next TUESDAY
THANKS FOR READING THANKS FOR EDITING GRACE!!!!!!!
xxx Maggie Jean