Jimson Weed, White Flower No. 1

Georgia O’Keeffe, 1932

Georgia O’Keeffe and paintings of flowers are tied together in iconic memory. Georgia is quoted as saying, “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. I decided that if I could paint that flower in large scale, you could not ignore it’s beauty.” And, “If you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your whole world for a moment. I want to give that world to someone else.”

O’Keeffe led a life that took her from a dairy farm in Wisconsin to fast-paced New York City to sleepy Abiquiu, New Mexico. Along this way she was a teacher and student; met and married her mentor and famous photographer, Alfred Stieglitz; and fell in love with the Southwest. She was a keen, keen observer of the details of beauty and wonder all around her and mentioned once that she bought a house because of “that door in that wall.”  She saw the grace of creation and I love that she painted weeds! 

Georgia O’Keeffe’s work is both bonding and bridging. Her paintings are bonding, bringing us together with those who share our life experience, and bridging, bringing us together with those who live very different lives. I recently heard an interview of Ron Finley, the Gangster Gardner of South Central Los Angeles. He spoke of his passion for the universal power of gardening. He spoke of the breath of life and beauty a garden could bring to those in settings that were neither beautiful nor life-giving. He believes designing a garden is an affirmation of both freedom and resistance within the sharing of high sensory and nutritional benefits. I think Ron and Georgia would have had much to talk about if they had met and I think our own Mike Bufton who is leading our Montview Youth Gardening Project this summer could have joined them in passionate conversation.

Georgia O’Keeffe is remembered as a unique and successful female leader in the world of art. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977. In 2014 the painting shared here, Jimson Weed, White Flower No. 1 – 1932, sold for $44,405,000, a world auction record for any work by a female artist. She died in 1986. She was 98.

In our uncertain, unsettling times, may we take solace and say a breath prayer as we look at this work by O’Keeffe. As we breathe in may we silently say, “God of all beauty,” and as we breathe out, “we notice and give thanks.”  Amen.

To Georgia O’Keeffe and all she shared!

In hope and faith,

Sandy Prouty