Desert Divas: Georgia O'Keeffe and More

 

The back of the Rancho de Taos Church, often painted by Georgia O'Keeffe

SchoolArts Magazine and CRIZMAC are offering two seminars in July 2014 in Santa Fe and Taos, New Mexico. The first of these is called Desert Divas: Influential Women Artists and Patrons of the Southwest and focuses on women artists such as Georgia O'Keeffe. The other, Folk Art Extravaganza, is correlated with the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market.) Desert Divas is July 3-10.These are open to anyone who is interested; you do not have to be an art teacher or a teacher to join us but educators do receive a certificate for 56 hours of professional development credit. 

The stunning New Mexico landscape has attracted artists and patrons to the Santa Fe and Taos regions for years, including many remarkable women—both past and present. From the spectacular black pottery of Maria Martinez and the detailed paintings of Pablita Velarde to the brilliant canvasses of Georgia O’Keeffe, and the contemporary clay sculptures of Roxanne Swentzell, their works have had a profound impact on the art world. 

Other innovative women such as Mabel Dodge Luhan, Millicent Rogers, and Mary Cabot Wheelwright were also at the artistic forefront, creating a living legacy in the arts through their patronage and museum development. Explore the fascinating lives and legacies of these “desert divas,” follow their footsteps, and become immersed in their artistic brilliance. You can learn more about the seminar and register here online. 

 

The Front of the Rancho de Taos Church

 A Focus on Georgia O'Keeffe 

One of our artists of focus is Georgia O’Keeffe. We’ll visit her home in Abiquiu and the sites of many places she painted, including Ghost Ranch and the Rancho de Taos Church.

 

The back of the church faces the highway.

 Many of the landscapes still exist as O'Keeffe painted them.

Georgia O'Keeffe was an American artist who was born in Wisconsin in the year 1887. She lived much of her childhood on a dairy farm, but when she was 15 years old, she and her family moved to Virginia, where Georgia attended a boarding school. Georgia became very interested in art during this time of her life. Her friends and teachers admired her talent. Georgia continued to draw and paint. Eventually she went to art school and even won a scholarship to the Art Institute of Chicago. For a while, Georgia worked as a commercial artist, then as an art teacher in Canyon and Amarillo, Texas. Her students in Amarillo never knew what to expect from Georgia O'Keeffe. One day she placed a pony on a table top for the students to draw!

Color, shape and form are the most important ideas about Georgia O'Keeffe's art work. She drew what she felt inside. Often what she drew or painted became abstract. One of her friends showed Georgia's abstract art to an art gallery owner, Alfred Stieglitz. He immediately exhibited her work, very pleased that he had "discovered" a woman artist. Very few women worked as artists at this time, so indeed she was a great discovery!

 

Chimney Rock at Ghost Ranch

In 1924, Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz married. They lived in New York City for about five years, then Georgia decided she needed more privacy and space than she had in the crowded city. She visited a friend in New Mexico and fell in love with the place. Instead of painting the busy New York skyline, she began to paint bones, skulls, mesas and hills. 

O'Keeffe began to spend summers in New Mexico at Ghost Ranch, near Abiquiu, and winters in New York. She moved permanently to Abiquiu when Stieglitz died in 1946, and lived out the rest of her long life there. After almost a century of life, Georgia O'Keeffe died in New Mexico in 1986. She is best remembered for her bright colored, abstract flowers and simple, abstract landscapes.