My wife and I had planned to make a trip to Waitsfield, Vermont to stay at the Inn at the Round Barn Farm, but the predicted weekend weather didn’t call for it. I suggested that we travel up to Gloucester instead and maybe visit the Georgia O’Keeffe exhibit at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem along the way. My wife answered surprisingly, “That would be fun!” 

To be clear, I do not know a lot about Georgia O’Keeffe, other than a somewhat regular familiarity with her southwestern style of art, and I certainly do not consider myself an art junkie. The Peabody Essex Museum seemed like a more culturally interesting way to spend the day rather than trekking up to Vermont’s Mad River Valley in what still promised to be the dreary dead of winter and peruse the local general store (again). 

We traveled north of Boston strategically planning to stop by the O’Keeffe exhibit before heading up to Gloucester for what I assumed would be the majority of the trip. I was quick to declare that I would not require the assistance of a GPS. Being the overly self-assured man, I proceeded to get lost in Salem meaning we got to see various parts of Beverly before arriving at our eventual destination.   

Traffic at and around the museum alerted me to the fact that the exhibit was much busier than I had expected. I found a two hour parking spot on the street as we approached the museum which seemed perfect as I assumed there was no way we would be spending more than two hours at the exhibit. My far more suburban minded wife always prefers the garage where, in this case, every driver east of Worcester was attempting to find a parking space. 

The museum was packed, which meant that it would be harder for security to identify me as the guy who reached out to touch a sealskin coat featured at the Inuit exhibit fifteen years ago activating an alarm. Not normally a fan of large crowds, I considered myself lucky in this regard. We waited in long lines that were more reminiscent of a Beatles concert than what promised to be a display of reputable artwork. Only twelve people were allowed into the exhibit at a time, meaning I became extremely familiar with virtually all of the opinions expressed by the group of women behind us. “She was really into triangles,” said one woman. “Can you remind me when she died?” said another. Their banter (which was impossible to ignore) reminded me of the old Palmolive commercials featuring Madge, who always had to delicately inform someone that their hand was submerged in a bowl of dishwashing liquid.     

We expected to find a series of Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings upon entering the exhibit, but instead were surprised to find exhibits featuring various articles of clothing that O’Keeffe wore. Interestingly (at least to me), I imagined an exhibit about me years from now featuring various items I have picked up off the 80 percent rack at Kohl’s instead of my writing and music (Jay Gillespie - May Ave. for those who of you who are hopefully intrigued).

The exhibit continued with yearbook photos from 1905, various film segments of Georgia O’Keeffe along with her husband, Stieglitz, in Manhattan, and O’Keeffe’s early 20th century paintings of New York City. 

Interestingly, only the final part of the exhibit highlighted the southwestern art that I was most accustomed to with regard to Georgia O’Keeffe, her paintings created after losing her husband and relocating to New Mexico in 1949. 

With an opportunity to view many of the items that characterized not only Georgia O’Keeffe’s artistic contributions but also her everyday philosophy of living, the exhibit at the Peabody Essex Museum uncovered an extremely complex woman who became publicly enamored for attempting to live life in a way that was anything but complex, subsequently able to recognize and harness the beauty of simplicity. 

Georgia O’Keeffe recognized her legacy as the accidental product of courageously living on her own terms staying conscious of and valuing the immediate world around her. “I’ve always been absolutely terrified every single moment of my life, and I’ve never let it stop me from doing a single thing I wanted to do.”

O’Keeffe did not view her success and subsequent fame as a result of luck. 

“Maybe it’s because I’ve taken hold of anything that came along as I wanted.” 

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