Georgia O’Keeffe said of flowers in “The Poetry of Things:”

“A flower is relatively small. Everyone has many associations with a flower — the idea of flowers. You put out your hand to touch the flower — lean forward to smell it — maybe touch it with your lips almost without thinking — or give it to someone to please them. Still — in a way — nobody sees a flower — really — it is so small — we haven’t time — and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time. If I could paint the flower exactly as I see it no one would see what I see because I would paint it small like the flower is small.

So 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.”

Up close! Touch, smell, kiss, see—all of them.

After reading this quote and enjoying many of the flowers in my garden this morning, I realize I need to look at them even more closely.

Thank you, Georgia O’Keeffe!

09 Jul This entry was published on July 9, 2020 at 9:15 pm. It’s filed under Flowers, Garden, John Snell, John Snell Photographer, Photograph, Summer, Vermont, www.johnsnell.photography and tagged flowers, Georgia O'Keeffe, John Snell Photographer, summer, Vermont, www.johnsnell.photography. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.