Arts This Week: “Georgia O’Keeffe: The Brightness of Life” at Vinegar Hill Theater
By Ben Larsen
Ella Powell:
You’re listening to WTJU Charlottesville. On Saturday, September 27th at 2pm, the
Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society is showing Georgia O’Keeffe: The Brightness of
Life, at Vinegar Hill Theater followed by a panel discussion with the filmmakers and UVAs
Beth Turner, who we spoke with for Arts This Week.
Paul Wagner:
My name is Paul Wagner. I’m the writer and director of Georgia O’Keeffe, brightness of light.
Ellen Casey Wagner:
I’m Ellen Casey Wagner, and I was the producer.
Beth Turner:
My name is Beth Turner, and I was the consultant.
Ella Powell:
How did you all first become inspired to work on this film and produce this?
Ellen Casey Wagner:
Well, we were inspired because we saw, in the fall of 2018 an exhibit at the Fralin art museum that Beth curated along with her students that fall. It was called Unexpected O’Keeffe, and it was about O’Keeffe’s time here in Charlottesville in the early 20th century. We had not known anything about this part of her life, and from that moment on, after seeing the exhibit, we thought there has to be a film here. And it expanded from originally thinking of a short film to becoming a full-length documentary.
Paul Wagner:
There was kind of one really fabulous, famous documentary film about O’Keeffe that was created by a woman filmmaker named Perry Miller Adato, but it was made in the 70s, and so it had been a long time since there had been an effort to really kind of comprehensively look at Georgia O’Keeffe’s life and art. And since the 70s, of course, all the work Beth had done and the many other consultants and experts and biographers then became kind of the source material for the new film that we put together.
Ella Powell:
So the film is a comprehensive look at O’Keeffe’s life. Does it take a particular focus on her time in Charlottesville as well?
Ellen Casey Wagner:
It’s a very important piece of the film.
Paul Wagner:
Yeah, it’s a significant piece of the film. I mean, we sort of, like a lot of people, in Charlottesville, we knew that she lived here, and so we thought, Oh, that’s cool. A famous artist lived in Charlottesville once. What we didn’t quite realize until we saw Beth’s work was how important that time was for O’Keeffe. She had really kind of lost her drive and her enthusiasm for being an artist, which is saying something when you think about who she eventually became, but she discovered the work really the art theories of a man named Dow.
Beth Turner:
I think the day that Georgia O’Keeffe walked onto the grounds of UVA first as a student, summer of 1912 and the subsequent summers as an instructor, opened a whole new way of thinking about art. And she began to work with the drawing exercises in Dow’s book of composition, and it taught design and about dividing space and filling space in a beautiful way. And it promised that if you attuned yourself to the space of the field of composition, you could invent something new that put her on the path to her own invention, to become who she was. Part of that path was becoming a teacher. She was listed in the summer school record as a faculty member. And you can go through those summer school records and you can find the courses that she taught. And she taught an amazing range of courses.
Paul Wagner:
Absolutely, one of my favorite shots in the film is of a place that is such a wonderful resource, not that far from us, humpback rock, but it’s a place that O’Keeffe visited, which I bet 1000s of UVA students visited and hiked up to. And she has a wonderful story. She tells about hiking up there with a group of friends, and when it got dark and they were gonna retire for the evening, everybody else went down. And O’Keeffe stayed up there and slept on the rocks overnight. And she talks about how much she loved the wind and the big sky and the harshness and the hardness of the rock. And I always loved that, because it’s just something that all of us here in Charlottesville and around UVA, know and love. And she loved it too.
Ella Powell:
How long have y’all been showing the film?
Ellen Casey Wagner:
We actually premiered it last fall in Santa Fe and then here in Charlottesville at the Virginia Film Festival, which was a thrill. Subsequently, they did an encore screening at the festival. And then Violet Crown ran it last March for four weeks, and we then showed it in all the Violent Crown theaters, and it’s now being booked in theaters and art centers and museums all over the country.
Paul Wagner:
There’s such an interest in seeing it on the big screen, we’re up to 80 art house cinemas around the country that have shown the film.
Ellen Casey Wagner:
So we’re thrilled to be able to show it again here in Charlottesville, preservation Piedmont and the Historical Society are partnering on this event.
Ella Powell:
Yeah, I wanted to ask you, Beth about your background in art history and how you contextualize O’Keeffe’s legacy.
Beth Turner:
I totally identify with O’Keeffe being a woman at UVA. I first attended UVA in the fall of 1970, so I was a part of that class of women, I fell in love with the place. So my engagement with the setting the space, the design of UVA, and how that impacted Georgia O’Keeffe’s imagination, and the way she was thinking about dividing space and filling space and experiencing space. So to be attuned to the horizon and to the cosmos, all of that is embedded in the spaces at UVA. And she invented her own form, and so she never doubted the originality of her invention. So imagine how empowering that is.
Ella Powell:
What do you all hope audience members will take away from the film?
Paul Wagner:
Well, I think people here in Charlottesville will take away an appreciation for O’Keefe. But you know, so many people already love and appreciate O’Keeffe. They will be struck by the UVA and by the Charlottesville connection. As we said, it’s not just that she lived here, but that it was an important part of her life, and so I think that will be powerful for people to see and learn. The other thing is that we’ve been told over and over by people who see the film that, well, I’ve always loved O’Keeffe, and I thought I knew everything about O’Keeffe, but I was wrong. When I saw this film, I realized how much I didn’t know and how much I could learn from the film. We also love that people can see it on the big screen at Vinegar Hill, and to see that artwork, 40 feet wide, those O’Keeffe paintings, it’s really fantastic.
Ella Powell:
What are some of those moments that really strike people?
Beth Turner:
It’s immersive. It brings you into space. And so you’re permitted to experience the spaces that Georgia O’Keeffe experienced. Even perhaps the most familiar stories about O’Keeffe all of a sudden become new. Paul and Ellen go through all the phases of Georgia O’Keeffe’s life. And so among the last phase, of course, is her will, the story of her will, and life and legacy there. And so there was controversy. And so there are questions, usually about that, was she a victim? And it took about another 30 years to have the records, all the letters, unsealed, and so Paul and Ellen benefited from that, just as scholars have benefited from that, but it’s fairly recent. With your film, you have a different way to tell the story. Why? Because the records have been unsealed, because all the checks and balances that Georgia O’Keeffe had embedded in her will have also been finally unfolded.
Paul Wagner:
Yeah, we benefited from all the scholars, all the exhibits and an association with the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe which gave us permission to use her artwork and to film in her two houses that were considered artworks in and of themselves. So that cooperation was a huge factor for us.
Beth Turner:
Her living space to her clothing to the way in which she painted her compositions. All of that was very carefully thought out, and she saw it as part of a continuum the book of composition promised you, if you were thoughtful about your choices and conscious of it and realize that there’s a whole aesthetic consideration to all elements of your life.
Ella Powell:
Georgia O’Keeffe: The Brightness of Life, is playing at Vinegar Hill Theater on September 27th with a 2pm show time. Tickets are 23 dollars, and the screening will be followed by a live panel discussion. Arts This Week is supported by the UVA Arts Council and Piedmont Virginia Community College. PVCC Arts presents a rich array of dance, music, theater and visual arts programming. Learn more at pvcc.edu For WTJU, I’m Ella Powell.
