Opposites Attract: Why Georgia?

• Notes from Kathryn

This is why I love writing these mysteries

Someone recently asked me why I began writing about Georgia O’Keeffe. All I could say is ‘she is so unlike me’. Where to begin about this woman who was born more than half a century before me? The point was driven home when I recently attended an exhibit on Georgia O’Keeffe at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. They had replicated her studio in her home in Abiquiu, New Mexico. It was the essence of an immaculate, calm and orderly environment. Everything had been pared down to the essentials. It was all harmony and not dissonance.

My own workspace in contrast, is an appalling tornado that perhaps betrays my mind. There is not a clear surface except for where my laptop sits. Post Its are stuck everywhere. Grandchildren’s photographs, pictures of owls and my kids' drawings from years ago clad the walls. There is a roll of Tums nearby in case stomach acids boil up when I’m trying to work out a plot point. Beneath my desk are some shoes that I have kicked off. Unless I remove books from chairs there is no place for friends to sit without a whirlwind clean up. That usually evokes shouts of wonder as I discover a book that I thought I had accidentally given away.

But that is not my only point of difference with O’Keeffe. My mind is disorderly. I often write too much in a scene. I need to pare it down until it is nearly skeletal for it to gain the power I seek. To me, Georgia is the very essence of pared down. She never had. to declutter. She sees to the essence of things right from the get-go whereas I continue to wander aimlessly through the debris of my own mind.

So, I am drawn to Georgia O’Keeffe. She has successfully cleared the clutter and is on a straight shot to the essence of things, be it a painting of an iris or the dawn illuminating a mesa. I am not her. I’ll never be her, but opposites attract and I shall continue celebrate her genius.