How Georgia Became O'Keeffe: Lessons on the Art of Living

"She followed her own rules, and got away with it," author Karen Karbo states in How Georgia Became O'Keeffe, referring to the artist as "the poster child for doing exactly what you want, in the service of an abiding passion."

This innovative, inspirational biography seeks to understand the intersection of O'Keeffe's life and art. The narrative is filled with great wit and hilarity and delves beyond the facts of O'Keeffe's "art star" status in order to better understand her choices: why she lived and painted the way she did; endured a tumultuous, co-dependent artistic and romantic relationship with the father of modern photography, Alfred Stieglitz; and how she maintained her sense of self and authenticity throughout.

Karbo's personal admiration for this bold, fearless artist leaps off the page. A single verb introduces the theme of each chapter with the intent to compare the artist's challenges to those that plague creative women today. Karbo explores O'Keeffe's artistic influences while circling the idea that O'Keeffe came from a sensible, hardworking, middle-class family and yet, she continually took risks and defied expected traditions of womanhood in order to nurture and preserve her ideals of self-expression. 

This is the latest installment in Karbo's "kick ass women" trilogy. The two other books examine the lives of Katharine Hepburn and Coco Chanel, also showing how strong, independent women forged their own paths by living true to themselves, despite being considered "unconventional."  While O'Keeffe continues to be revered as a personal icon to millions of women and aspiring artists everywhere, it is Karbo's original, wry analysis that is bound to enrich O'Keeffe's status even more.

How Georgia Became O'Keeffe: Lessons on the Art of Living by Karen Karbo

skirt!, $21.95, Hardcover,9780762771318, 240 pp

Publication Date: November 15, 2011

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Please note: This review is a reprint and is being posted (in a slightly different form) with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (11/18/11), click HERE.

Circles of Influence

The way you see nature depends on whatever has influenced your way of seeing.

Georgia O'Keeffe


In an exhibition entitled, Dove/O'Keeffe: Circle of Influence currently on display at the Clark Art Gallery (MA), a parallel is drawn to show the influence and visual affinities that existed between two artists--Georgia O'Keeffe, who is celebrated as one of the most significant American visual artists of the 20th Century, and Arthur Dove, America's first abstract painter. O'Keeffe credits the work of Dove as her primary introduction to abstract art. She admired the bold, vibrant color and forms depicted in Dove's art and that admiration inspired O'Keeffe to make her own abstract drawings in charcoal and watercolor.

Just as reading across literary disciplines can better serve one's writing, so can being exposed to and experiencing other art forms. O'Keeffe is quoted as saying, "Art, life and consciousness are interconnected." With that in mind, perhaps the more you examine your own artistic influences--visual, literary or otherwise--the more enlightened you will be about your own work and its direction.