Actually no I don't. I have no idea, nor do I particularly care what  
O'Keefe did or did not do in her spare time. Artists are, and were,  
often a bit well "artsty". Some were flamboyant, some had alternative  
lifestyles, some were stark raving lunatics. Did it effect their  
work, yes. Does it particularly influence my appreciation of it, no.  
Van Gogh was more than a little odd and I really like his work.  
Toulouse-Latrec was also a bit different, but again I enjoy much of  
his work. I could go on, but I won't.

Unfortunately to compensate for excluding people in the past we are  
now including relatively unimportant people primarily because of the  
color of their skin or their sex. And because of limited teaching  
time excluding other more important people. While I think excluding  
someone as a result of them not being White and/or male is wrong,  
neither is it correct to include them primarily because they are  
not.  It is demeaning, racist and/or sexist. There are lots of  
Americans of all sexes and ethnic background worthy of study. I would  
rather be ignored than included as someone's token anything.

I have visited many of the US's "finest" art museums and while I was  
well acquainted with Georgia O'Keefe's floral paintings, I was  
unaware that she was "well" known for her paintings of the Southwest  
until it came up in my text book. That I am not particularly a fan of  
O'Keefe's work probably has something to do with this, but I have  
seen a fair amount of her work. Interestingly most of the web sites  
on O'Keefe's paintings deal almost exclusively with her floral works  
(at least the ones I located). It is pretty easy to miss the SW  
entirely. I just think that there were probably more influential  
American artists. but in the end it is all opinion. Maybe someday I  
will be asked to contribute to the SOLs.

James Brothers, RPA
[log in to unmask]

On Jun 26, 2007, at 18:53, Jane Steele wrote:

> James:  Sometimes women and other groups not represented in your  
> basic American History courses are often left out because of  
> unusual diferences or controversal things that they did that still  
> upset the textbook moovers and shakers today?  Catch my drift?  Jane.