Georgia O'Keefe

Georgia Tatto O’Keefe is a woman painter who truly captured the Southwest in every piece she created.  She was born in 1887 in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin on a small dairy farm and decided at the age of 10 that she would be an artist.  After graduating high school, she attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, but for a short time.  After one year, she moved to New York where her art really took flight in 1916.  After many years and several annual visits, she moved to the Southwest, Santa Fe, New Mexico, to really expand her artistic abilities.

Georgia O’Keefe is widely known for her magnified floral pictures.  She would take a small flower and magnify it hundreds of times onto a canvas.  She wanted to take a different direction than other artists and really show the beauty of the flower as opposed to just a glimpse.  She wanted to really capture its beauty.  People were enthralled by her different approach and loved her pictures.

Once she moved to Santa Fe, she began really capturing the Southwestern culture.  She painted pictures of adobe churches, cultural objects, and the bones and rocks she would find lying around the desert floor.  She loved the beauty in everything she saw, and when she felt the right inspiration, she painted.

As a person coming from New Mexico, I really did not see anything in the bones lying around, or the churches I would see all the time, but when I look at Georgia O’Keefe’s paintings, I see so much beauty and I can see the unique quality of culture that you can really only find in New Mexico.  I think that is what she wanted to show people.

Childhood Symbol

 I don't know about you, but this symbol means a whole lot to me.  This symbol IS  my childhood.  It is Nickelodeon's orange slime splattered on a white wall with Nickelodeon written in the middle.  Nickelodeon, or Nick, is a television network that caters to children, and adults, through funny cartoons and live action TV.

Nick arose from the American culture in the late 1970s, that had a line-up that wasn't exactly for children at that time.  AS time passed, the shows became more kid friendly with some "hidden" innuendo.

Nickelodeon holds a different symbol for different people.  It could mean the best TV to one person, and the worst TV to others *cough, Disney lovers, cough*. Nick symbolizes childhood for me.  I grew up on it.  I woke up early every Saturday morning to watch it with my cousins and siblings--our ritual.  I would watch it at my grandma's house after her soup operas.  I would watch it after I got home from school.  This IS my childhood.  This symbol is fun, messy, amusing, exciting and it honestly makes me think that Rugrats or Hey Arnold is about to come on.

The connotation that comes with this Nickelodeon symbol is childhood memories.  If I showed this picture to the people in my generation, I am positive that it would bring a smile to their face.  All of my friends and I have watched or at least seen this symbol splatter onto the TV in between shows.  It let us know that there was more and that we didn't have to get up to leave and do other things--we were invited to stay.  This image holds so many memories for people in our culture.

My Morbid Curiosity...

          I actually really enjoyed Morbid Curiosity, which actually sounds ironic given the name. Everything was just so interesting!

          From the bone chandelier to the mound of clothing.  What struck me at the very beginning was how much the skeleton theme reminded me of Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), a Mexican celebration of the dead. It reminded me of the parties and celebrations back home with my friends and their families.  As I moved further into the exhibit, though, that feeling quickly disappeared.  I was frightened and disgusted by everything I was seeing.  At times, I felt that the people the sculptures could be representing would be insulted by such a grotesque display.  One in particular was the display of a half deteriorated body.  As I really examined it, the statue seemed to come alive and I actually threw up a little bit looking at it!

           I was really excited to see the Guerra de la Paz portion of the exhibit because I had done research on them.  My favorite piece was the mound of clothing that sat in the center at the back of the room.  I found it interesting how many different articles of clothing there was and in how many different colors.  I couldn't help but wonder who might have worn these pieces of clothes and where they are now. I find it so fascinating that they wanted to bring people and spirits back to life by using their clothes. I had never thought about the life that remained in clothing after its wearer passed away or just stopped wearing it.  I think about that now when I get clothes from my sister.  I think about what she must have done, where she had gone, who she met, etc.  I think it's the coolest thing and the best fossil of our time.

           I definitely had a good time at this exhibit. It got me really thinking and wondering what these artist must have experienced to want to creat such art.  I don't think they just woke up one morning and said they were going to create dead people for art.  What did they go trough? Could they have experienced a horrible death? Did someone close to them die out of the blue? Do these people FEAR death??  I wonder what they must think of the afterlife...