Re: Steiglitz & O'Keeffe

On Tue, 25 May 2004, PhotoGecko Austin wrote:

> I happen to adore the one of Georgia's fingernails. . . . Sorry, but I
> do!

As noted, I think they're icky -- and come on, she couldn't sharpen a
pencil with nails like that, let alone mix paint.

> And as for the clouds. . . . Well, I really *wanted* to get them, but I
> didn't get them at all. They look like clouds, not at all like the
> tormented brooding blood-letting orgies that I've experienced as
> Emotions.

I always thought he was thinking of higher type exquisitely sensitive
and refined emotions... not that that changes matters much.

> I mean. . . gimme a break, Alfred. It may be a great cloud,
> but it isn't angst or love or perplexity. . . .

> So we disagree, and then we agree again. I dunno. It's like a wise
> one once asked, as I recall, very early on in PF-- Who gets to decide?

Obviously John, I do... just sometimes it takes a while for the world to
come around.

> Having been some 50 years or so (give or take several decades along the
> way) in life-- I *can* imagine traveling 2000 miles (because 3000 miles
> is just too far to go) to get away from someone I'm (yet) passionate
> about. . . . And then traveling back again. I can imagine (and this
> was my point) Georgia defending the life's work of one she loved. And
> so, as I read her comments about Steiglitz's work I wondered
> (self-consciously, as I said) what she meant.

But I have led you astray, and for this I apologize... The name is
S-T-I-E-G-LITZ.... When I came across the right spelling last night
somewhere else, I was aghast, thinking I'd spelled it wrong in the issue.
But it was OK there, just wrong in this e-mail.

(Of course all right thinking names do "e" before "i", so in this he was
also wrong.)

> This conversation reminds me of the heated exchange (or was it just
> luke-warm?) on the list a couple of years ago about Ansel Adam and
> zones and calendars and greeting cards. Who, I ask you, gets to decide?

Yeah, Luke Worm.... I think the general consensus now is calendar art,
that is, among sophisticates, not calendar buyers. I think, however, that
nobody decides *permanently.* Reputations often shift, or rise & fall,
like land masses. When they get debased enough, someone is bound to
resurrect them. Someone from another time and totally out of it.

> The original question (which led to all this projection, for gosh
> sakes) was: Is Photography Art?

I don't care what you call it -- it's interesting, and can do a lot of
things we don't even know yet. Besides which, most "art" isn't art.

> Meanwhile--I still buy the USPS set of photography stamps. And I save
> the Steigletz shot of Georgia's fingers for my best-intended envelopes.
> In fact! -- I believe I put one on the envelope that carried my PF
> subscription to New York City!

And that was probably the one I used for the illustration, page 2. I
never bought those stamps & I don't remember getting it from anyone else.
(It was as I recall uncancelled -- I guess the PO was impressed by her
elegance).

Thanks,

> Oy, vey.

agreed,

Judy
Received on Wed May 26 19:43:13 2004