In this Keep Begin Detach at Em Wolfman in Oakland California. It was a cozy time in the back with some christmas lights, telling stories about Georgia O’Keefe’s life and a little about her work.

I borrowed a book of published letters of hers from the library. It’s lovely to think that what we write to our friends might be a way that history remembers us. And the mundanity of our lives become special not because the world changes and our lives that seemed normal are increasingly exotic and foreign.

There’s a moment in this video where I take some time to talk about trauma. I read an a amazing book by Janina Fisher called Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors. 

I didn’t realize that one of my guests at the Keep Begin Detach was a psychologist. It’s very fascinating who shows up and I’m honored everytime I meet someone new at one of these things and get to share with them our shared passion for lovely people of the past.

A lot of her popularity was affected by her relationship with Alfred Stieglitz.

As a subject of his photography and a partner in marriage, Georgia O’Keefe had access to his art world connections. At some point she sought to separate herself from him and had other photographers take her portrait. The zine at the event contained images of her and not her work, though two letter excerpts. I brought that book of letters which also contained vivid color prints of her work that did them more justice I think than trying to reproduce them in black and white. And as a note, I did color edit (increased the contrast) the photos in the zine so that they would print on the black and white printers.