The Exhibition of Henry Moore and Georgia O'Keeffe now at the San Diego Museum of Art and closing August 27, 2023.
Georgia O'Keeffe
the
Muse Within
An Artist who declined to be categorized as a Woman Artist, she was a person who lived her life as truth as she saw it. Color. shape, texture,and line. Her imagination created works which will be treasured for all time. I see her work and realize that here was a soul which gave us her self, imaged in color and infused with mystery. Georgia O'Keeffe small in stature, but characterized monumental in her dedication to work, and gives rise to the question of women in art and whether or not they should be categorized as women artists or artists who paint.
I read that women actors are now actors in the media. This should be the norm for women in the arts of all genres. I declined to exhibit in The National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) back in the day, for the reason of being labeled. I echo her stance about labels and it is my belief that labels of any kind are not needed, that works of art should stand on their own.
As a small child, she always knew that she wanted to be an artist. When small it was a natural inclination to do the drawing and was encouraged by her mother to be herself. Her Muse within was born early and this gave rise to the unflinching drive which was a lifelong ability to create her art.
This muse within gives joy, purpose, doing, completion, and the secrete smile that comes and means the work is Truth. Done. There is no greater feeling of worth when the nature of creating an art work is done.
It has always been my philosophy that all children have this creative ability. They paint with abandon, sings songs with words that only they know. Somewhere along the way this ability is lost, and most never are never to reconnect for many reasons. (Which is another post). Georgia was the exception in a most wondrous way. Her Bigness, her colors and the emotional impact of viewing her work is seductive and compelling. The Bigness was born when she lived in Texans and contemplated the vastness of the sky. How large it was compared to New York. How blue and big.. This became a conscious guide for her work.
Large Flowers, large skies, large clouds, and large bones. She collected bones from the desert, leaves which became withered sculptures, shapes from nature, and painted it infused with her colors and imagination of her environment.
In this exhibition, Georgia O'Keeffe and Henry Moore share similarities in combining negative space and sensuous forms. They are the elements which give a yin- yang feeling to the over all exhibition. His being three dimensions and hers being two dimensions. Hers bringing exhilarating and brilliant color, and his being of a solid and limited palette of stone, wood, and bronze.
Yes, Georgia, you did so very well. You have given us worlds of wonder from the heart, driven by the Muse within. As a woman and artist, I thank You. Your work will be for All Time as an Artist, and, as a woman who lived outside of the definition of society's of a woman's role and inside of the world of imagination. She became one with Nature...Above all an Artist of masterworks.
