{"id":7013,"date":"2018-06-10T04:00:30","date_gmt":"2018-06-10T11:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/?p=7013"},"modified":"2018-05-24T13:44:52","modified_gmt":"2018-05-24T20:44:52","slug":"a-lifelong-dedication-to-one-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/art\/a-lifelong-dedication-to-one-thing\/","title":{"rendered":"A Lifelong Dedication to One Thing"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Autumn Trees – The Maple 1924<\/p><\/div>\n

I run into people at writers\u2019 conferences all the time who say they\u2019ve wanted to be a writer for as long as they can remember. And I think that must be a wonderful thing. They have a lifetime to work on the one thing they care about.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, in this century we talk a lot about reinventing ourselves, changing careers, learning new things. And that, too, is an attractive prospect: to open our arms wide and taste all that life has to offer. I tend more toward the dilettante\u2019s way of life, but I can\u2019t help but admire someone who devotes her entire life to one thing. Georgia O\u2019Keeffe was one of those people.<\/p>\n

In May, my daughter and I visited the Georgia O\u2019Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It was even better than I\u2019d expected.<\/p>\n

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Bella Donna 1939<\/p><\/div>\n

Like most people, I was familiar with her flower paintings, and the museum did have some nice ones. O\u2019Keeffe said the male artists in her circle thought she was crazy to paint flowers. So instead of giving up, she painted them big. She figured that way people would bother to notice what they may have thought of as insignificant little flowers.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Keeffe always denied that her flower paintings were sexual. She said that was just the way men interpreted them. I take her at her word. My daughter doesn\u2019t believe her.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Untitled (Red and Yellow Cliffs) 1940<\/p><\/div>\n

Flowers were only one of O\u2019Keeffe\u2019s subjects. She painted New York City skyscrapers, New Mexico landscapes, and clouds and rivers as seen from a plane. She was seriously into abstraction. Her abstract paintings were considered cutting edge. (Sorry. I didn’t take photos of her most abstract paintings. If you want to see more, Yelp<\/a> has 229 photos from the museum.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Gerald’s Tree I 1937<\/p><\/div>\n

O\u2019Keeffe decided she wanted to be an artist when she was in the eighth grade. In high school, she was the art editor of the school yearbook. After high school, she went to art schools and taught art. She spent the rest of her life dedicated to art. When she was 85 years old, she developed macular degeneration, but even after that, she continued to make art with the help of an assistant. She died in Santa Fe, NM, at the age of 98.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Machu Picchu I, 1957<\/p><\/div>\n

Over her career, she produced more than 2000 works, the result of devoting her entire long life to the pursuit of art. Watching interviews of her, it appears that she loved her life and that she kept her deep and sincere enthusiasm for art into old age.<\/p>\n

In defense of dilettantes, however, let me just say that we dilettantes can also be seriously devoted to what we do \u2026 one thing at a time.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I run into people at writers\u2019 conferences all the time who say they\u2019ve wanted to be a writer for as long as they can remember. And I think that must be a wonderful thing. They have a lifetime to work on the one thing they care about. On the other hand, in this century we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,673,1739,253,1659],"tags":[1750,1748,1749,1751],"class_list":["post-7013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-creativity","category-new-mexico","category-travel","category-vacations","tag-dedication-to-one-thing","tag-georgia-okeeffe","tag-georgia-okeeffe-museum-santa-fe-nm","tag-santa-fe-new-mexico"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3Kn1e-1P7","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6994,"url":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/travel\/new-mexico-tales-and-miracles\/","url_meta":{"origin":7013,"position":0},"title":"New Mexico Tales and Miracles","author":"Nicki Chen","date":"June 3, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0Having been a big fan of fairy tales when I was growing up, I find the intersection of ordinary life with the extraordinary immensely satisfying. 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Flying in from our respective states, we met at the Albuquerque airport, rented a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Culture"","block_context":{"text":"Culture","link":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/category\/culture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/IMG_0683-e1526601063877.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9706,"url":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/gardens\/a-life-dedicated-to-plants-the-kruckeberg-botanic-garden\/","url_meta":{"origin":7013,"position":3},"title":"A Life Dedicated to Plants, the Kruckeberg Botanic Garden","author":"Nicki Chen","date":"October 10, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"After a healthy lunch of borscht, spinach salad, and huge pretzels covered in seeds, my sister suggested a forest walk. She had a nearby destination in mind. And ... another motive. She'd heard that the Kruckeberg Botanic Garden had cyclamen plants for sale that day, the first Saturday in October.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Gardens"","block_context":{"text":"Gardens","link":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/category\/gardens\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/IMG_3017-e1633474660281.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9569,"url":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/photography\/we-love-our-mountains\/","url_meta":{"origin":7013,"position":4},"title":"We Love Our Mountains","author":"Nicki Chen","date":"June 13, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"I like living near the water. I don't have a sea view from my house, but I can smell the seaweed at low tide. If I walk three houses down the street, I can see it. If I go to Starbucks or the supermarket or the eye doctor or almost\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Edmonds"","block_context":{"text":"Edmonds","link":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/category\/edmonds\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/IMG_1280-e1623290399299.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6841,"url":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/books\/dr-seusss-birthday\/","url_meta":{"origin":7013,"position":5},"title":"Dr. Seuss’s Birthday","author":"Nicki Chen","date":"March 4, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 I knew something was up. Too many Cat-in-the-Hat hats. Too many \u201cthings\u201d (Thing 1s and Thing 2s). Too many small children, each with the same size paper in one hand. I was on my way to the Edmonds Book Shop, where my friend Kizzie Jones was doing a reading\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "books"","block_context":{"text":"books","link":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/IMG_0445-e1520129585720.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7013"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7013\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7026,"href":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7013\/revisions\/7026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}