Before they were famous

Last Tuesday I went a lecture about Georgia O'Keeffe sponsored by the Pottstown Area Artist Guild. The guest speaker was Ellen O. Nelson, an artist in her own right and probably a certifiable O'Keeffe groupie. Nothing is more engaging than a speaker who is enthusiastically knowledge about a subject.
 
Long before Georgia O'Keeffe took up residency at the Ghost ranch in New Mexico she was already an established artist in New York City. Ellen O. Nelson spent a lot of time on O'Keeffe's early career with paintings that were influenced by the precissionists and surreal artists of the 1920's

For me it was nice to get past what O'Keeffe is most famous for, her paintings of flowers that amateur critics like to lampoon as floral pelvic exams.  

But even in New York you can see the possibilities of things to come. Georgia O'Keeffe has become an icon for many women because she was as independent as she was creative.

On another note today is the 161st anniversary of the publication of Herman Melville's Moby Dick. Moby Dick is seen as the great American novel but originally the book received mixed reviews and didn't even sell all of its first 3,000 copies (so if you have a first edition copy today, it's worth many thousands of dollars). Herman Melville's first few books were all best sellers and some feel Moby Dick killed his writing career much the same way the monstrous white whale killed Captain Ahab.

Herman Melville died in obscurity. It wasn't until the 1920's more than 30 past his death when Moby Dick was "rediscovered" and declared a classic. It became a must read for the intellectuals of the 1930's, 40's and 50's.

Then came the movie.

Now we are spared the chore of reading over 500 pages to find out that in the end the whale wins. It's a shame because Moby Dick is a pretty accessible book if you have the time.

If Moby Dick isn't what you seek, I can recommend Ray Bradbury's Green Shadows, White Whale. One of Bradbury's big breaks was writing the screenplay for the movie. Some parts are contrived but the book is sharp and funny with many pointed insights into the creative process, Ireland in the 1950's, the director John Huston and how making a movie is a lot like making sausage. One of  the best parts is when Ray Bradbury writes about how he changed ending of the book in a small but very monumental way -it's a part of the ending that really stayed in my mind ever since I saw the movie as a little kid.

Come... both book beckon.