![\"sky-above-clouds-iv\"](\"http:\/\/nancyhoufek.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Sky-Above-Clouds-IV.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nWhen O\u2019Keeffe began to fly in the 1950s, she started a series of works responding to what she saw from the air.\u00a0 The Sky Above Clouds<\/i> series started with a small, relatively realistic version of puffy white clouds.\u00a0 She gradually abstracted the images on larger and larger canvases, culminating in this one.\u00a0 Here\u2019s what she wrote:<\/p>\n
\u201cI painted a painting eight feet high and twenty-four feet wide\u2014it kept me working every minute from six a.m. till eight or nine at night as I had to be finished before it was cold\u2014I worked in the garage and it had no heat\u2014Such a size is of course ridiculous but I had it in my head as something I wanted to do for a couple of years so I finally got at it and had a fine time\u2014and there it is\u2014Not my best and not my worst.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n
Sky Above Clouds IV<\/i> fills an enormous wall at the top of a grand staircase in The Art Institute of Chicago. It slowly comes into view as you climb the stairs. The only painting in sight, its expanse and simplicity will take your breath away.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Keeffe was seventy-seven years old when she made this painting.\u00a0 As she aged, she clearly wasn\u2019t afraid to explore new motifs, to expand in size, and to push towards even more abstraction. As an artist of a \u201ccertain age\u201d myself, this inspires me. \u00a0Her age also tells me something about the images of clouds and the title of the painting. O\u2019Keeffe is not looking down but looking up.\u00a0 The clouds themselves are merely a basis from which to move to the next level of existence, whatever you may imagine that to be.<\/p>\n
As another year has passed, I can feel changes in my own perspective.\u00a0 I am losing interest in many things that had been a part of me.\u00a0 I don\u2019t cook extravagantly. I wear the same clothes over and over again, particularly when I paint.\u00a0 Smaller pleasures are more meaningful:\u00a0 a glass of wine with my husband, playing ball with the dog, enjoying an early morning walk outside. The need to be with people all the time, playing with language, has been replaced by the joy of being alone in the studio, interacting with paint, brush, canvas.<\/p>\n
Physical change as well as perspective change is taking place.\u00a0 I have had to make peace with a different way of staying fit.\u00a0 No more extreme sports.\u00a0 It\u2019s nice, actually, to smooth out the rough edges of needing to be on the mountain or on the river.\u00a0 I am letting go of the addiction, which it was, to physical risk.<\/p>\n
The risks now are in my artwork.\u00a0 After decades of painting, I may be finding a new visual voice.\u00a0 I\u2019m getting comfortable breaking rules and having the courage to say, \u201cThis is me.\u00a0 This is how I want to paint.\u201d\u00a0 I\u2019m letting the \u201cerrors\u201d be the strength of my expression. My nascent new standard:\u00a0 \u201cDo I want to look at this?\u201d Not, \u201cIs it correct?\u201d<\/p>\n
O\u2019Keeffe painted her last unassisted work when she was eighty-five.\u00a0 Even when she was almost blind from macular degeneration, she continued to create with the help of assistants.\u00a0 At ninety, she said, \u201cI can see what I want to paint. The thing that makes you want to create is still there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Onward.\u00a0 We will all face the physical and mental shifts of aging.\u00a0 Right now, I\u2019m choosing to experience them as blessings.\u00a0 The world may get a little more circumscribed, but the will to make art can explode within that smaller circle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If I had to pick a favorite painting, Georgia O\u2019Keeffe\u2019s Sky Above Clouds IV would be it.\u00a0 Most if us know O\u2019Keeffe from her flowers, cow skulls, or austere landscapes. \u00a0Any one of her paintings would top my list, but this one is magnificent. When O\u2019Keeffe began to fly in the 1950s, she started a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nancyhoufek.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nancyhoufek.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nancyhoufek.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nancyhoufek.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nancyhoufek.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=409"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/nancyhoufek.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":699,"href":"http:\/\/nancyhoufek.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409\/revisions\/699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nancyhoufek.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nancyhoufek.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nancyhoufek.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}