Icon Georgia O'Keeffe

Georgia O'Keeffe, Alfred Stieglitz, 1918

In the description of this blog I referred to "icon" Georgia O'Keeffe.  Today I began thinking about the designation "icon" for her. Clearly in the art world, she is known as an icon, but what about the rest of the world?  I goggled  the word "icon" and then "American icon" and realized I had opened a huge can of worms . . .

An early favorite was the list of The Top Ten Icons at Ask Men.com:

1. John Fitzgerald Kennedy
2. Marilyn Monroe
3. Elvis Presley
4. John Wayne
5. Martin Luther King
6. Michael Jordan
7. James Dean
8. Frank Sinatra
9. Earnest Hemingway
10. Ronald Reagan                                  

Wow!  Not exactly what I had in mind -- only one woman on the list and not "Georgia O'Keeffe" --  but then again . . . James Dean! James Dean would definitely be on my list.

James Dean, Giant

I recently ran across a photo of James Dean's grave in Fairmont, Indiana  in a box of my old things,  I took that photo myself  with my  little Kodak Brownie camera !  When I in the 6th grade I was totally in love with James Dean.  I lived in Kokomo, Indiana then and discovered that Fairmont was only 20 miles or so from my home.  I convinced my best friend that we should go, so we set out on our bicycles (dragging our two little brothers along) for Fairmont.  About a mile out of town, we decided to abandon our bikes in a nearby field and hitch hike.  We made it -- and I have pictures of his grave to prove it!

Today I am almost a celebrity when I show those pics to my baby boomer friends and tell that story.  We did get in a whole lot of trouble from the Moms when we  got back..  Turns out my little brother was scheduled to be an altar boy at five o'clock mass and he didn't make it back in time. In my minds eye  I can still see my angry mother's face. My brother recently showed me an entry in Mom's old diary that talked about how mad and worried she was that day. Yikes!  Sorry Mom.  But I digress . . .

I did find a photo of O'Keeffe tagged "ICON/Georgia O'Keeffe" on the blog Tomboy Style along with a statement of what is meant by Tomboy Style..

 TomboyStyle

Georgia O'Keeffe, A Portrait, 1918, Alfred Stieglitz

. . . What makes her so is a sense of "confidence, rebelliousness and adventure". , ,  A precise description of Georgia O'Keeffe . . .she  qualifies as not only a tomboy, but a Tomboy Icon.


to be continued -- much to say about American icons.