Whitney Otto
I.
The first woman I wrote about (a fictionalized version) was Georgia O’Keeffe, along with Dorothy Parker and Isadora Duncan; don't try and make sense of why they fit together for me because I don't know. This was around 1982. I began my love affair with Lee Miller in the mid-1970s, making an appearance in pretty much everything I’ve ever written. All this started a writing life of putting women at the center of my stories.
II.
My first novel (mercifully unpublished) was written in 1987. It was a fictionalized story of O'Keeffe. Including a fictionalized Alfred Stieglitz, Juan Hamilton, and a young woman based on no one.
III.
One thing (I think) I remember reading, way back, was O’Keeffe’s comment that, when she was young, the men were heading to Europe to paint. She didn't have the means to leave, so she decided to go deeper into America. I don't know if this is true. I think a lot about America these days.
IV.
The painting shown here is The Shelton with Sunspots, NY, 1926. It is my favorite picture of hers. I have always adored her city pictures. This was in a print torn from a calendar, and tacked to the wall in my son's room when he was a baby. I love the painting because I had my own dreams of Europe in my youth (but couldn't afford to go), and I loved New York (where my mother is from, but that's not why I love it) and I love cities, and I could, like O’Keeffe, only afford to go deeper into America.
V.
I've seen many O’Keeffes, in many places, over the years, including a retrospective in Los Angeles in the1980s, in Madrid, in New York. The way the paint is applied to the canvas always makes me want to touch them.
VI.
In this moment in America, John and I have thought about trying to leave America. God knows, it's beyond the beyond just living here, day to day, with things crumbling around you that you didn't expect to crumble--but leaving, for us, would mean leaving too much behind. Not just our past, but the people we love. And, in a larger, less personal sense, leaving the people who want (or need) to leave as much as we do but cannot, for many reasons. Going deeper into America is not a solution; it’s the problem. Can it be solved? Are we allowed to hope that next year will be better than this one?