Georgia O'Keeffe - Flower Quotes

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I realized that were I to paint flowers small, no one would look at them because I was unknown. So I thought I'll make them big, like the huge buildings going up. People will be startled; they'll have to look at them — and they did.

Georgia O'Keeffe
I know I cannot paint a flower. I can not paint the sun on the desert on a bright summer morning but maybe in terms of paint color I can convey to you my experience of the flower or the experience that makes the flower of significance to me at that particular time.

Georgia O'Keeffe
When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not.

Georgia O'Keeffe
A flower touches almost everyone's heart. A red hill doesn't touch everyone's heart as it touches mine.

Georgia O'Keeffe
I don't remember where I picked up the head — or the hollyhock. Flowers were planted among the vegetables in the garden between the house and the hills and I probably picked the hollyhock one day as I walked past. My paintings sometimes grow by pieces from what is around... I have used these things to say what is to me the wideness and wonder of the world as I live in it.

Georgia O'Keeffe
The large 'White Flower' [she painted in 1929] with the golden heart is something I have to say about White – quite different from what White has been meaning to me. Whether the flower or the color is the focus I do not know. I do know that the flower is painted large to convey to you my experience of the flower – and what is my experience of the flower if it is not color.

Georgia O'Keeffe
When I began to paint flowers, I was sure nobody would pay attention. So I thought, I'll make them big and they'll pay attention — one of those good-for-nothing reasons. But they took notice.

Georgia O'Keeffe
I made you take time to look at what I saw and when you took time to really notice my flower, you hung all your associations with flowers on my flower and you write about my flower as if I think and see what you think and see—and I don't.

Georgia O'Keeffe
Alfred [Stieglitz] was always apprehensive about my new things. When I started painting big flowers he said, 'Well, what do you think you are going to do with that?' He was always nervous until the first notices came in. When I brought back my bones from New Mexico and began to work on them he had a fit.

Georgia O'Keeffe
When I came to New Mexico in the summer of 1929, I was so crazy about the country that I thought, how can I take part of it with me to work on? There was nothing to see in the land in the way of a flower. There were just dry white bones. So I picked them up.... I took back a barrel of bones to New York.

Georgia O'Keeffe
I hate flowers. I only paint them because they're cheaper than models and they don't move.

Georgia O'Keeffe
Nobody sees a flower — really— it is so small — we haven't time —and to see takes time.

Georgia O'Keeffe
I said to myself — I'll paint what I see — what the flower is to me but I'll paint it big and they will be surprised into taking time to look at it — I will make even busy New Yorkers take time to see what I see of flowers.

Georgia O'Keeffe
A flower is relatively small... Still in a way-nobody sees a flower-so I said to myself-I'll paint it big.

Georgia O'Keeffe