O'Keefe, Matisse, and Klee

When I think about artists who have influenced my work, Georgia O'Keefe (American, l887-l986) always comes first. I had seen many of her flower paintings and some of her desert work, but her watercolors are what made her mark on me. They are vivid and bold and spontaneous and alive. I have tried to copy her Evening Star No. V many times, in crayon and pastel and oil pastel and even watercolor. I never succeeded, which only reinforced my respect and admiration for her.

But more than that, I love these early watercolors in a visceral way that I can't explain. So I'm not even going to try--instead, I urge to you find a copy of Georgia O'Keefe: Works on Paper (Museum of New Mexico, 1985) and look at them for yourself.

Then there's Matisse (French, l869-l954). His paintings sing with color, and I have a large poster of his Goldfish hanging across from my bed. Those pinks and greens! The red goldfish! (Am I the only one who thought that goldfish were gold?) And his drawings are elegance on paper.

But my favorite works are his cut-outs, which he made when he was old and often too sick to paint. These cut-outs are made from paper painted in bright, clean colors and they combine his brillant sense of color with the elegance of his drawings. If you haven't seen these cut-outs, run, don't walk, to your library and find a book with them. They are unforgettable.

I learned to love Paul Klee (Swiss, l879-l940) much later. I had often confused him with Miro, because the paintings I had seen had the same kind of idiosyncratic swirls and symbols that I had first seen in Miro's work. But those paintings are just a small part of his work. The paintings I have grown to love are his sonatas of color, especially the ones he painted after spending time in Tunisia and then Egypt.

I spend a lot of time looking at art books. I always learn something new, of course, but, far more importantly, I get the great and deep joy that comes from looking at beautiful things.