I recently learned of a unique exhibit of 18 pieces of Georgia O'Keeffe's work and 60 photographs of her and her life. The art exhibit runs through September 7, 2008 at the Portland Museum of Art in Portland, Maine.
"For the first time, the exhibition pairs paintings and photographs to establish two opposing public images of the artist. Georgia O'Keeffe and the Camera includes works by famous photographers such as Ansel Adams, Alfred Stieglitz, Eliot Porter, Todd Webb, and Arnold Newman. The exhibition will also include examples of O'Keeffe's paintings and works on paper that mark major moments in the development of her art"*
If you live in the area or are looking for a last minute Labor Day vacation, I encourage you to check out this exhibit.
O'Keeffe was both the artist and the subject of art. This exhibit shows how both roles fortified her career.
Looking for more?
Another FaMiss article about O’Keeffe: Changing Our Dreams into What We Do: Georgia O’Keeffe vs. Sylvia Plath
Podcast that tells about the theme of the exhibition: Georgia O’Keeffe, An Overview – introduces the idea of how photography help promote her painting career. http://www.portlandmuseum.org/Content/3009.shtml
*http://www.portlandmuseum.org/exhibitions-collections/current.shtml
Please visit FaMiss - Women's Success History & Literature, including books & movie reviews highlighting historical and modern women experiences.
About the author: Allison Frederick is a writer and online marketing educator for other creative women. www.FaMissWomen.com offers free Web 2.0 resources. She is also the author of an upcoming novel, A Portrait of Josephine, an academic-lite thriller. Find out how to receive a free copy of the novel by visiting www.portraitofjosephine.com
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Changing Our Dreams into What We Do: Georgia O’Keeffe vs. Sylvia Plath
Some people have such an innate sense of what they want and who they are. I have never been that kind of person. Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986) is my icon, my model for self-certainty. It seems she never wavered from her painting. Her boldness and confidence governed her daily decisions which supported her artistic life. She married a much older man, a man who was also in the arts; a gallery owner, champion of artists, and famous photographer. O'Keeffe seemed to blossom in this partnership, becoming even more strong and assured. She had the confidence to break away not only from her traditional master painters but also from the styles of the male painters of her time. Her painting "Red, White, and Blue" (1931) was a jibe to her contemporaries. In an interview (see the youTube video below), a much older O'Keeffe lit up with orneriness as she described what this painting meant to her. She said that at that time all the artists were discussing the "Great American" this and the "Great American" that but, she laughed, few of these men had been west of the Hudson River. O'Keeffe knew there was more to the American Spirit than New England breeding and Western dime novels. She had lived in rural Texas and New Mexico, truly embracing a holistic vision of America.
I read about Georgia O'Keeffe, study her art, and watch her interviews to see if I can figure out what made her so certain about how she should live her life. Why was she able to focus so clearly on her painting? How did she have the courage to boldly share her vision of the world without heed to the critics? How did she blend so well with married life, using it to reinforce her art rather than minimize it?
I am tempted to believe that some people are just born that way, but isn't that always our default when we don't understand a phenomenon? We pinpoint genetics, fate, or God's will as the reason for a mystifying origin. I can't be satisfied with that and I imagine neither can many of you. If you are like me, longing for a level of mastery, creative expression, and success enjoyed by someone like O'Keeffe then you won’t be satisfied by the standard line "She was born with it" either.
But I am beginning to wonder if the answer lies more in not what a woman did but perhaps what she didn't do. O'Keefe's husband was very famous and successful but O'Keeffe wasn't threatened by this. She didn't make herself smaller, or tuck herself into the shadow of her husband's successful career. In fact, her paintings grew bolder and larger after her marriage. Poet Sylvia Plath (1932-1963); however, chose a different response. She was a published, popular poet before she married another successful poet. But it seemed that as her husband became more successful, she became more self-effacing. She developed writers block. She set the priorities of her husband and children before her poetry. She denied her creative expression. Perhaps she thought she was doing the proper thing, setting aside her creative ambition to tend to her daily responsibilities. But her actions weren't selfless. Her need to creatively express herself was so strong, so undeniable that it eventually ate at her from the inside and she chose to kill herself rather than live in her creative vacuum.
I believe that for many of us, men and women alike, we blur ourselves, our dreams, our true nature in shrouds of expected responsibility and excuses of lack of time and energy. We think we are doing the right thing by working at a job that doesn't support our creative needs. We think we are giving our children a perfect childhood when we are available for their every need. Meanwhile our core self, our creative self gets smaller and more obscure. At the same time our bitterness and disappointment grows by leaps and bounds. The truth is, most of us can't create in a protective isolated chamber (unless you are Emily Dickinson). If art reflects life, then it is through life that we create art. And most of our lives are filled with responsibilities, earning a living, caring for loved ones, nurturing our health. Each of our responsibilities requires time and creates distraction. Every interaction has the potential to cause us to doubt ourselves and make ourselves smaller like Plath, or to enrich our perspective and foster creative ways of expression like O'Keeffe.
Some of us store our personalities in boxes and call them dreams. "One day when I retire I’ll do this." Or "if circumstances changed, I would be doing this." The trouble with putting off who we are is that our true self or our "dreams" as we call it keeps gnawing at us. We use this taunting to justify our anger, our fears. We use it to blame the ones we love, saying they prevent us from being who we truly are. But is this true? Are we being honest?
Perhaps the key to changing our dreams into a reality is to change what we do every day. The choices we make on how we spend our time, where we focus our energies, and whether our daily actions are consistent with who we truly want to be. O'Keeffe lived to be a very happy, accomplished 98 year old. Sylvia Plath killed herself at the age of 30. Both were incredible artists, whose work has influenced thousands of women but one seemed happy with her life and we enjoy a larger body of work from the woman who turned her dreams and self into a daily reality.
Looking for more?
Please visit FaMiss - Women's Success History & Literature, including books & movie reviews highlighting successful historical and modern women experiences.
Georgia's spirit in her own words:
About the author: Allison Frederick is a writer and online marketing educator for other creative women. http://www.famisswomen.com/ offers free Web 2.0 resources. She is also the author of an upcoming novel, A Portrait of Josephine, an academic-lite thriller. Find out how to receive a free copy of the novel by visiting http://www.portraitofjosephine.com/
I read about Georgia O'Keeffe, study her art, and watch her interviews to see if I can figure out what made her so certain about how she should live her life. Why was she able to focus so clearly on her painting? How did she have the courage to boldly share her vision of the world without heed to the critics? How did she blend so well with married life, using it to reinforce her art rather than minimize it?
I am tempted to believe that some people are just born that way, but isn't that always our default when we don't understand a phenomenon? We pinpoint genetics, fate, or God's will as the reason for a mystifying origin. I can't be satisfied with that and I imagine neither can many of you. If you are like me, longing for a level of mastery, creative expression, and success enjoyed by someone like O'Keeffe then you won’t be satisfied by the standard line "She was born with it" either.
But I am beginning to wonder if the answer lies more in not what a woman did but perhaps what she didn't do. O'Keefe's husband was very famous and successful but O'Keeffe wasn't threatened by this. She didn't make herself smaller, or tuck herself into the shadow of her husband's successful career. In fact, her paintings grew bolder and larger after her marriage. Poet Sylvia Plath (1932-1963); however, chose a different response. She was a published, popular poet before she married another successful poet. But it seemed that as her husband became more successful, she became more self-effacing. She developed writers block. She set the priorities of her husband and children before her poetry. She denied her creative expression. Perhaps she thought she was doing the proper thing, setting aside her creative ambition to tend to her daily responsibilities. But her actions weren't selfless. Her need to creatively express herself was so strong, so undeniable that it eventually ate at her from the inside and she chose to kill herself rather than live in her creative vacuum.
I believe that for many of us, men and women alike, we blur ourselves, our dreams, our true nature in shrouds of expected responsibility and excuses of lack of time and energy. We think we are doing the right thing by working at a job that doesn't support our creative needs. We think we are giving our children a perfect childhood when we are available for their every need. Meanwhile our core self, our creative self gets smaller and more obscure. At the same time our bitterness and disappointment grows by leaps and bounds. The truth is, most of us can't create in a protective isolated chamber (unless you are Emily Dickinson). If art reflects life, then it is through life that we create art. And most of our lives are filled with responsibilities, earning a living, caring for loved ones, nurturing our health. Each of our responsibilities requires time and creates distraction. Every interaction has the potential to cause us to doubt ourselves and make ourselves smaller like Plath, or to enrich our perspective and foster creative ways of expression like O'Keeffe.
Some of us store our personalities in boxes and call them dreams. "One day when I retire I’ll do this." Or "if circumstances changed, I would be doing this." The trouble with putting off who we are is that our true self or our "dreams" as we call it keeps gnawing at us. We use this taunting to justify our anger, our fears. We use it to blame the ones we love, saying they prevent us from being who we truly are. But is this true? Are we being honest?
Perhaps the key to changing our dreams into a reality is to change what we do every day. The choices we make on how we spend our time, where we focus our energies, and whether our daily actions are consistent with who we truly want to be. O'Keeffe lived to be a very happy, accomplished 98 year old. Sylvia Plath killed herself at the age of 30. Both were incredible artists, whose work has influenced thousands of women but one seemed happy with her life and we enjoy a larger body of work from the woman who turned her dreams and self into a daily reality.
Looking for more?
Please visit FaMiss - Women's Success History & Literature, including books & movie reviews highlighting successful historical and modern women experiences.
Georgia's spirit in her own words:
About the author: Allison Frederick is a writer and online marketing educator for other creative women. http://www.famisswomen.com/ offers free Web 2.0 resources. She is also the author of an upcoming novel, A Portrait of Josephine, an academic-lite thriller. Find out how to receive a free copy of the novel by visiting http://www.portraitofjosephine.com/
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Women Who are Happy at Work: Are You One of Them?
Book Review: Be Happy at Work: 100 Women Who Love Their Jobs, and Why (2005) by Joanne Gordon
As I watch the summer 2008 Olympics, I wonder why in the world I never considered beach volley ball to be a career option for me. I watch those women and wonder if they fret on Sunday afternoon, dreading the return to work on Monday morning and I doubt it. Why was I so narrow in my thinking when I chose my careers? Why did I think that disliking the job was part of my penance which justified my pay check? Why did I think that I didn’t need to be happy at my job? Now, I wasn't always unhappy in my jobs but I certainly held my fair share of crappy jobs, but this was normal, right?
The book Be Happy at Work: 100 Women Who Love Their Jobs, and Why not only makes a perfect gift for a girl about to graduate high school or college but it is also perfect for someone who finds herself in a career transition, is job hunting, or hates going to work.
Joanne Gordon selected 100 women in a variety of fields who love their job. She tells us why they love their job and how they arrived in this position. She features a huge variety of women including the unusual financial planners and engineers, but also more unusual careers such as a synchronized swimming performer and park ranger. She found that all these women had for main traits in common: process, purpose, people, and being proactive. I loved the stories because in many cases these women held jobs I never even considered. I evaluated what they liked and tried to imagine if I would enjoy this line of work. In some cases I ruled out career ideas I've held since I was a little girl; realizing that I probably wouldn't like them that much.
As women we balance so much. If we also hate our job or are bored by our job then it is really hard to maintain the energy we need to keep the rest of our lives going. Rather than drink more coffee or take some other stimulant or coping mechanism, why not use Gordon's book to help you find the job or career path that will be so exciting to you that it will give you energy rather than drain you.
Looking for more? Please visit FaMiss - Women's Success History & Literature, including books & movie reviews highlighting historical and modern women experiences.
Gordon has a newer book out (2006) called Career Bliss: Secrets from 100 Women Who Love Their Work
About the author: Allison Frederick is a writer and online marketing educator for other creative women. www.FaMissWomen.com offers free Web 2.0 resources. She is also the author of an upcoming novel, A Portrait of Josephine, an academic-lite thriller. Find out how to receive a free copy of the novel by visiting www.portraitofjosephine.com
As I watch the summer 2008 Olympics, I wonder why in the world I never considered beach volley ball to be a career option for me. I watch those women and wonder if they fret on Sunday afternoon, dreading the return to work on Monday morning and I doubt it. Why was I so narrow in my thinking when I chose my careers? Why did I think that disliking the job was part of my penance which justified my pay check? Why did I think that I didn’t need to be happy at my job? Now, I wasn't always unhappy in my jobs but I certainly held my fair share of crappy jobs, but this was normal, right?
The book Be Happy at Work: 100 Women Who Love Their Jobs, and Why not only makes a perfect gift for a girl about to graduate high school or college but it is also perfect for someone who finds herself in a career transition, is job hunting, or hates going to work.
Joanne Gordon selected 100 women in a variety of fields who love their job. She tells us why they love their job and how they arrived in this position. She features a huge variety of women including the unusual financial planners and engineers, but also more unusual careers such as a synchronized swimming performer and park ranger. She found that all these women had for main traits in common: process, purpose, people, and being proactive. I loved the stories because in many cases these women held jobs I never even considered. I evaluated what they liked and tried to imagine if I would enjoy this line of work. In some cases I ruled out career ideas I've held since I was a little girl; realizing that I probably wouldn't like them that much.
As women we balance so much. If we also hate our job or are bored by our job then it is really hard to maintain the energy we need to keep the rest of our lives going. Rather than drink more coffee or take some other stimulant or coping mechanism, why not use Gordon's book to help you find the job or career path that will be so exciting to you that it will give you energy rather than drain you.
Looking for more? Please visit FaMiss - Women's Success History & Literature, including books & movie reviews highlighting historical and modern women experiences.
Gordon has a newer book out (2006) called Career Bliss: Secrets from 100 Women Who Love Their Work
About the author: Allison Frederick is a writer and online marketing educator for other creative women. www.FaMissWomen.com offers free Web 2.0 resources. She is also the author of an upcoming novel, A Portrait of Josephine, an academic-lite thriller. Find out how to receive a free copy of the novel by visiting www.portraitofjosephine.com
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Got the Middle of the Week Work Blues? Rx -Ellen DeGeneres
"Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for - in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it."
So the question is - Why be normal? Enjoy the rest of the week.
Looking for more? Please visit FaMiss - Women's Success History & Literature, including books & movie reviews highlighting historical and modern women experiences.
So the question is - Why be normal? Enjoy the rest of the week.
Looking for more? Please visit FaMiss - Women's Success History & Literature, including books & movie reviews highlighting historical and modern women experiences.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Thelma & Louise: Instead of Freedom, They Chose Prison
"You get what you settle for."
Thelma and Louise 1991 movie
I missed this movie when it first came out. Finally making the time for this "girlfriend" classic, I looked forward to wild adventures and renegade women. Instead I found women who managed to escape from one prison only to securely lock themselves in another.
The movie unfolds into one shackle after another as each woman makes a choice to leave behind a world that either bores or pains them only to plunge into a lawless, lifeless abyss.
I was so disappointed in the courageous attitude of these women who seemed to spend more time reacting to events than to planning and creating them. Still, I do love the quote "You get what you settle for." It helps keep me in check when I am grumbling about my place in life. - I have what I've settled for. So the question each of us should ask is are we happy with what we have?
About the author: Allison Frederick is a writer and online marketing educator for other creative women. www.FaMissWomen.com offers free Web 2.0 resources. She is also the author of an upcoming novel, A Portrait of Josephine, an academic-lite thriller. Find out how to receive a free copy of the novel by visiting www.portraitofjosephine.com
Thelma and Louise 1991 movie
I missed this movie when it first came out. Finally making the time for this "girlfriend" classic, I looked forward to wild adventures and renegade women. Instead I found women who managed to escape from one prison only to securely lock themselves in another.
The movie unfolds into one shackle after another as each woman makes a choice to leave behind a world that either bores or pains them only to plunge into a lawless, lifeless abyss.
I was so disappointed in the courageous attitude of these women who seemed to spend more time reacting to events than to planning and creating them. Still, I do love the quote "You get what you settle for." It helps keep me in check when I am grumbling about my place in life. - I have what I've settled for. So the question each of us should ask is are we happy with what we have?
About the author: Allison Frederick is a writer and online marketing educator for other creative women. www.FaMissWomen.com offers free Web 2.0 resources. She is also the author of an upcoming novel, A Portrait of Josephine, an academic-lite thriller. Find out how to receive a free copy of the novel by visiting www.portraitofjosephine.com
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Girlfriends Hit the Road: a 1920s Road Trip Book Review of Eight Women, Two Model Ts, and the American West (2007)
Book Review of Eight Women, Two Model Ts, and the American West (2007) by Joanne Wilke
Author Joanne Wilke is a wonderful storyteller whose childhood memories waffle into the readers’ nostrils like homemade apple pie. She beautifully captures the story of her grandmother’s trip to California from Iowa in 1924.
Eight young women loaded their belongings into two Model T cars and headed to California. Wilke tries to answer the question why did these girls do this? How did they find the courage and convince their parents to let them go? Even though Wilke worked from living testimonies of some of the women who made the journey, read their journals and letters back home, this adventure had many gaps and conflicting accounts. Wilke supplements the story with her own childhood memories of spending the summers in Iowa with her grandmother. These added stories really make her grandmother come alive to the reader.
This is a fun, relatively short tale of a cross country adventure before there were real roads, reliable maps, or even enclosed cars. This grand scale of this journey makes me wonder if the women were able to return to their lives and be happy for the memories or if it woke a restlessness in them that was difficult to quench.
Looking for more? Please visit FaMiss - Women's Success History & Literature, including books & movie reviews highlighting historical and modern women experiences.
About the author: Allison Frederick is a writer and online marketing educator for other creative women. www.FaMissWomen.com offers free Web 2.0 resources. She is also the author of an upcoming novel, A Portrait of Josephine, an academic-lite thriller. Find out how to receive a free copy of the novel by visiting www.portraitofjosephine.com
Author Joanne Wilke is a wonderful storyteller whose childhood memories waffle into the readers’ nostrils like homemade apple pie. She beautifully captures the story of her grandmother’s trip to California from Iowa in 1924.
Eight young women loaded their belongings into two Model T cars and headed to California. Wilke tries to answer the question why did these girls do this? How did they find the courage and convince their parents to let them go? Even though Wilke worked from living testimonies of some of the women who made the journey, read their journals and letters back home, this adventure had many gaps and conflicting accounts. Wilke supplements the story with her own childhood memories of spending the summers in Iowa with her grandmother. These added stories really make her grandmother come alive to the reader.
This is a fun, relatively short tale of a cross country adventure before there were real roads, reliable maps, or even enclosed cars. This grand scale of this journey makes me wonder if the women were able to return to their lives and be happy for the memories or if it woke a restlessness in them that was difficult to quench.
Looking for more? Please visit FaMiss - Women's Success History & Literature, including books & movie reviews highlighting historical and modern women experiences.
About the author: Allison Frederick is a writer and online marketing educator for other creative women. www.FaMissWomen.com offers free Web 2.0 resources. She is also the author of an upcoming novel, A Portrait of Josephine, an academic-lite thriller. Find out how to receive a free copy of the novel by visiting www.portraitofjosephine.com
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Volver: Movie Review - A Woman's Interior World
The world revolves around the lives of women in Spanish director Pedro Almodόvar’s latest film, Volver (2006). It is a wonderful depiction of survival, loyalty, and integrity yet the action on the screen bears little resemblance to what is really going on in the lives, hearts, and heads of the women.
Almodόvar demonstrates once again (as he did in the film All About My Mother) that he truly understands the dual nature of women. He understands that women often have their external life, one that is busy and complex, but it is in their interior life (often very different than what is seen by others) where the core of her being dwells. His female characters are smart, fallible, sophisticated, genuine, and complex, perhaps some of the most complex female characters ever represented in film.
Volver is a relational film though perhaps few women can relate to the circumstances Penélope Cruz finds herself in but it isn’t to the situation that we can relate but rather who her character, Raimunda, is.
A beautiful, fun (in a strange way) film, one to share with your girlfriends.
This film reminded me of a quote by Edith Wharton:
"But I have sometimes thought that a woman's nature is like a great house full of rooms: there is the hall, through which everyone passes in going in and out; the drawing- room, where one receives formal visits; the sitting-room, where the members of the family come and go as they list; but beyond that, far beyond, are other rooms, the handles of whose doors perhaps are never turned; no one knows the way to them, no one knows whither they lead; and in the innermost room, the holy of holies, the soul sits alone and waits for a footstep that never comes."*
*The Fullness of Life, part II (1893) Early Stories of Edith Wharton, vol. 2.
About the author: Allison Frederick is a writer and online marketing educator for other creative women. www.FaMissWomen.com offers free Web 2.0 resources. She is also the author of an upcoming novel, A Portrait of Josephine, an academic-lite thriller. Find out how to receive a free copy of the novel by visiting www.portraitofjosephine.com
Almodόvar demonstrates once again (as he did in the film All About My Mother) that he truly understands the dual nature of women. He understands that women often have their external life, one that is busy and complex, but it is in their interior life (often very different than what is seen by others) where the core of her being dwells. His female characters are smart, fallible, sophisticated, genuine, and complex, perhaps some of the most complex female characters ever represented in film.
Volver is a relational film though perhaps few women can relate to the circumstances Penélope Cruz finds herself in but it isn’t to the situation that we can relate but rather who her character, Raimunda, is.
A beautiful, fun (in a strange way) film, one to share with your girlfriends.
This film reminded me of a quote by Edith Wharton:
"But I have sometimes thought that a woman's nature is like a great house full of rooms: there is the hall, through which everyone passes in going in and out; the drawing- room, where one receives formal visits; the sitting-room, where the members of the family come and go as they list; but beyond that, far beyond, are other rooms, the handles of whose doors perhaps are never turned; no one knows the way to them, no one knows whither they lead; and in the innermost room, the holy of holies, the soul sits alone and waits for a footstep that never comes."*
*The Fullness of Life, part II (1893) Early Stories of Edith Wharton, vol. 2.
About the author: Allison Frederick is a writer and online marketing educator for other creative women. www.FaMissWomen.com offers free Web 2.0 resources. She is also the author of an upcoming novel, A Portrait of Josephine, an academic-lite thriller. Find out how to receive a free copy of the novel by visiting www.portraitofjosephine.com
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