🌵 Georgia on our minds

Howdy, Pitch Partner! 🤠

We've said it before but The Ranch has a thing for Georgia O'Keeffe.

Don't know what I'm talking about? Start here, with "The Legend of GhostRanch".

Spark Notes version:
O'Keeffe spent a large portion of her life living and creating in Ghost Ranch, New Mexico—where she was utterly prolific in her work. Well, we're a nimble band of creatives, breathing life into slides for our utterly prolific clients to help them better communicate.

Hence, our name, GhostRanch Communications.
*takes bow*

How frequently are you following a designer, creative or any kind of celeb creator and fall into an internet hole about where they went to college, what they eat for breakfast, whether or not their zodiac sign aligns with yours...you get it.

This is a natural instinct to collect all kinds of information about someone! And a lot of it is available to us whether or not an icon is long gone or an active Instagram influencer.

If someone inspires you, it's worth going deeper than what they're known for. What made them tick might also get you ticking (TikTok-ing??) too.

So we felt compelled to retrace Georgia's steps.
And for the record, she's a Scorpio.

O'Keeffe On The Blog

"It's not enough to be nice in life. You've got to have nerve."

Georgia on our minds...

Revisiting Georgia's life journey provided me with renewed interest in her initial works with which you can track the influences and effects of in her later art.

Though she's widely known for her lush oil colors depicting desert scenes, her first public exhibit was a series of charcoal drawings, pictured above (ironically void of color in the traditional sense).

Fine Art Charcoal raves about her use of the method "erasure", "dramatic lines that have been worked...to display, perhaps of the power of lightning or the majesty of a mountain range."

AKA, the woman puts lighting on a whole mountain range with just a charcoal pencil! She was destined for the success she achieved.

I wrote more about all this, you guessed it, ON THE BLOG.
Click below.

O'Keeffe On The Blog

Fashion shaping feminism

We all can picture Georgia's laidback style - oversized ponchos, men's trousers and a wide brim hat—she was made for #VanLife. But did you ever consider how crazy that was in the 1920s?? Our girl's got swagger.
One Guardian article writes: "It is worth noting that much of O’Keeffe’s inspiration came from feminist writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman, who advocated “social and domestic reform”, which included reformation of gendered clothing – that boys and girls should dress the same."

Georgia and Alfred, sitting in a tree...

Georgia met her life partner Alfred Stieglitz in New York City—her as a young unknown artist and him as an already famous photographer and icon in the creative world.
This 7 minute NPR listen provides insight into their preserved letters to one another. As they were frequently on opposite ends of the country, this correspondence interestingly captures their tumultuous relationship.
Of the photo above he writes to her: "I have destroyed 300 prints to-day. And much more literature. I haven't the heart to destroy this..." 🥺

"How to See More and Care Less"
A beautifully constructed TED Ed video on O'Keeffe's life and creative methods