O'Keeffe to Sherwood Anderson (September, 1923?)

​"I feel that a real living form is the result of the individual’s effort to create the living thing out of the adventure of his spirit into the unknown—where it has experienced something—felt something—it has not understood—and from that experience comes the desire to make the unknown—known. By unknown—I mean the thing that means so much to the person that wants to put it down—clarify something he feels but does not clearly understand—sometimes he partially knows why—sometimes he doesn’t—sometimes it is all working in the dark—but a working that must be done—Making the unknown—known—in terms of one’s medium is all-absorbing—if you stop to think of the form—as form you are lost—The artist’s form must be inevitable—You mustn’t even think you won’t succeed—Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant—there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing—and keeping the unknown always beyond you—catching crystallizing your simpler clearer version of life—only to see it turn stale compared to what you vaguely feel ahead—that you must always keep working to grasp—the form must take care of its self if you can keep your vision clear."


Sherwood Anderson, Letter to his son John, April, 1927:


"In relation to painting. 

Don’t be carried off your feet by anything because it is modern — the latest thing. 

Go to the Louvre often and spend a good deal of time before the Rembrandts, the Delacroixs. 

Learn to draw. Try to make your hand so unconsciously adept that it will put down what you feel without your having to think of your hands. 

Then you can think of the thing before you. 

Draw things that have some meaning to you. An apple, what does it mean? The object drawn doesn’t matter so much. 

It’s what you feel about it, what it means to you. 

A masterpiece could be made of a dish of turnips. 

Draw, draw, hundreds of drawings. 

Try to remain humble. Smartness kills everything.

The object of art is not to make salable pictures. It is to save yourself.

Any cleanness I have in my own life is due to my feeling for words. 

The fools who write articles about me think that one morning I suddenly decided to write and began to produce masterpieces. 

There is no special trick about writing or painting either. I wrote constantly for 15 years before I produced anything with any solidity to it.

[…]

The thing of course, is to make yourself alive. Most people remain all of their lives in a stupor. 

The point of being an artist is that you may live.

[…]

You won’t arrive. It is an endless search. 

I write as though you were a man. Well, you must know my heart is set on you. It isn’t your success I want. 

There is a possibility of your having a decent attitude toward people and work. That alone may make a man of you."

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