Tracy Shaffer
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Georgia O’Keeffe: the Beautiful and the DAM

rsz_okeeffe_georgia-chama_river_ghost_ranchThere’s nothing like a room full of O’Keeffe to make me want to take a road trip and the “Georgia O’Keeffe in New Mexico: Architecture, Katsinam and the Land” exhibit at the Denver Art Museum is no exception. Horizontal landscapes of rugged terrain, softened under pastel lights and sharpened on the shadow stimulate my need for the wide and the wild. When Georgia O’Keeffe came to the badlands of Abiquiu she was already an established and successful New York artist. The untamed West, rendered by a soul who’d found her place on earth brings serenity to every city wall she hangs on. Heavy with landscape, the exhibit takes us away from the larger, more familiar cow skulls and flowers of our collective remembrance and sits us down on a rock at sunset. Shapes, shadows, fine strokes and drama draw the viewer deeper down the river. Hopi influences aside, or perhaps front and center I found myself transported to a different time and place, staring at a church or a chasm as if alone in the enchantment.  O’Keeffe crowds solitude with the thick heat and thin air of the high mesa desert, in a tone-on-tone moment that contains life and death without judgement.
“I longed for quiet, a sense of personal attachment and a place that held meaning”, Georgia said of New Mexico.  Not only did she find it she became it, inspiring us as layers of light call to the mind to open up, to share.  A pencil sketch becomes an intimate whisper, the high blue mesa a best friend. Georgia O’Keeffe is the retreat you long to give yourself, and now she has come to you.
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Georgia O’Keeffe in New Mexico: Architecture, Katsnim & the Land at the Denver Art Museum through April 28, 2013

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Tracy Shaffer
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“LET US GIVE THANKS”


An autumn past, a dear new friend sent me a Max Coots prayer/poem/chant for Thanksgiving. It has been his tradition for many years and now it is mine as well; a simple connection, a virtual whisper of thanks. I thought long and hard about posting it on my blog, as I usually send it as an email. In the end I chose to include it as the spirit is wider than my contact list and my feelings about it aren’t constrained by form.
If this is your first time receiving it we might have just met or perhaps reconnected after many years. Perhaps you are a stranger, stumbling on it as a novice and to you I say welcome. If you remember it from seasons past, I hope you enjoy it once more and wrap yourself in the true feeling it comes with. If you are one of the lucky ones, receiving this both from me and my dear friend…you are twice blessed.
Happy Thanksgiving.

Let us give thanks for a bounty of people:
For children who are our second planting.
And though they grow like weeds and the wind too soon blows them away,
May they forgive us our cultivation and remember fondly where their roots are.
Let us give thanks:
For generous friends, with hearts as big as hubbards and smiles as bright as their blossoms;
For feisty friends as tart as apples; for continuous friends, who, like scallions and cucumbers, keep reminding us we’ve had them.
For crotchety friends, as sour as rhubarb and as indestructible.
For handsome friends, who are as gorgeous as eggplants and as elegant as a row of corn, and the others, as plain as potatoes and so good for you.
For funny friends who are as silly as Brussels sprouts and as amusing as Jerusalem artichokes, and serious friends, as complex as cauliflowers and as intricate as onions.
For friends as unpretentious as cabbages, as subtle as summer squash, as persistent as parsley, as delightful as dill, as endless as zucchini, and who, like parsnips, can be counted on to see you throughout the winter.
For old friends, nodding like sunflowers in the evening-time and young friends coming on as fast as radishes.
For loving friends, who wind around us like tendrils and hold us, despite our blights, wilts, and witherings.
And finally, for those friends now gone, like gardens past that have been harvested, but who fed us in their times that we might have life thereafter; for all these we give thanks.
— Max Coots
1928-2009

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Tracy Shaffer
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TEENS AND THE CITY

Planning a trip to New York is always exciting, but planning a ten day trip with two teenage boys is a handsome cab horse of a different color. How could they see New York’s New York, my New York and find those “I Heart NY” moments for themselves? I knew I had to keep it real. With all of the touristy things on our plate, the trick would be to spin those with the sights and sounds, the smells, bells and flavors that make the city what it is. In New York the magic’s in the moment, so the more opportunities I could create for them to dance among its denizens, the better the interface would be.
Rule number 1.) Walk as much as you can.
Rule number 2.) Take the subway for maximum effect.
Rule number 3.) Do not put any limits on the day. Including what time it starts and ends.
And the bonus tip…No matter how well you know the city, allow yourself to get lost.

Throwing down a bit of historical context to match the immediacy of the New York minute, I worked in some tales of my time in Manhattan and a few irritating, “See that (painting, building, church, store, statue…)? It’s important!” stops along the sidewalks. Dinner at Joe Allen’s over Applebee’s, and meeting friends for picnics, lunches, or museum visits gave things the personal touch and sense of belonging. The overall effect…? “Mom. Can we move here?”

To read more on our adventure, plan your own or find out what made the boys’ “TOP 5 THINGS TO DO IN NEW YORK”, click here.

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