Inward to the Bones (a piece about Georgia O'Keefe)

I killed off all sentiment. Did it
for the pictures. It was not allowed
to be an artist and a woman too.
My art had sculpted me, made me
the woman you see.
Something round and warm had to go.
What was left were my bones -
terribly beautiful in a hard desert light.
- from a poem about Georgia O'Keeffe by Emily Braid.

Georgia O'Keefe is an artist both my mother and I admire; not just for her striking art, but also her sheer determination to paint things her own way, despite critique, and isolation, and in the later years, failing eyesight. She was also able to articulate the inner bones of her artistic nature. I love these words:

"I thought someone could tell me how to paint a landscape, but I never found that person. I had to just settle down and try. I thought someone could tell me how, but I found nobody could. They could tell you how they painted their landscape but they couldn't tell me to paint mine."
- from an interview with Georgia O'Keefe, aged 92

- Image: Arnold Newman, 'Georgia O'Keeffe, Ghost Ranch, New Mexico', 1968
Link to further resources on O'Keefe here