Georgia O’Keeffe

  b. 1887; d. 1986 | American artist

At The Bottom

— 1909

By the end of each day, she was too exhausted to work on her own art...

Georgia O’Keeffe hadn’t attended art school in New York and Chicago so that she could spend her days drawing lace embroidery for magazine advertisements and being paid by the piece.  Since the age of 12 she had dreamed of being an important artist, and her talent was visible to her teachers, who recognized her with several small awards and scholarships during her art school years.  But by 1908, her family’s increasingly difficult financial situation spurred O’Keeffe to find work — any kind of work — that would allow her to make a living on her own.  As a freelance illustrator, O’Keeffe fulfilled that minimal goal.  The work was dull, though, and she hated every minute of it.  By the end of each day, she was too exhausted to work on her own art — the smell of paint and turpentine only frustrated her further, a reminder of the artistic drive that she’d once possessed but had somehow lost by her early 20’s.  She continued as a freelancer for a year before contracting a severe case of measles that actually harmed her eyesight badly enough that she could no longer continue.  She moved back to her family’s home in Virginia, where her father struggled to keep his farm and small business alive and her mother endured the early stages of tuberculosis.  Before long she wrote a letter to a friend, telling him that she was giving up painting for good.