On December 14th, 2016 we met at Nettie's home to
discuss Sarah's book entitled Georgia by Dawn Tripp.
Since it was Christmas we had a lovely social hour with appetizers, soups,
and Kathy's desserts.
Most people were able to attend and we had nine including our
honored guest Doug. So the attendees were Julie, Madeleine, Kathy.
Betsy, Sarah, Carol, Nettie and Janet.
I believe all had read the book and most of us had gone to
Georgia O'keeffe's museum in Santa Fe or had been to one exhibit
or another.
The book starts out with Georgia painting and teaching in Texas and her
ultimate meeting in New York with her mentor Alfred Stieglitz. They have
an instant attraction and she is enthralled and taken into his world of art, sex and passion.
She becomes the model for his famous nude photographs but refused to be
defined by those and begins to
develop her own artistic independence and transforms into her own
artistic being using her own instincts. Stieglitz would have liked to
control her art but she manages to break loose and moves to Santa Fe
developing her own artistic freedom and the rest is history.
O'Keefe was actually an artist who successfully sold her art as
she had a great manager/promoter husband.
The author uses the love
letters they wrote to each other almost daily before and after they were
married to weave the story together. We had to be reminded that this was historical fiction.
The book had some torrid love scenes and some beautiful visual imagery of the art.
We discussed the character of Stieglitz who was an unfaithful womanizer.
We thought the author did a great job depicting their relationship which
was the meat of the book. It was a good read whether factual or not.
Betsy chose "The Boston Girl" by Anita Diamant to be the next book
and a tentative date was set for February 8th. Betsy offered to host the next
meeting.
