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by Nancy Hopkins Reily (Author)
The time is 1887. From any window in Georgia O'Keeffe's Sun Prairie, Wisconsin birthplace home she only saw the Wisconsin prairie with its traces of roads veering around the flat marshlands and a vast sky that lifted her soul. At twelve years of age Georgia had a defining moment when she declared, "I want to be an artist." Years later from her east-facing window in Canyon, Texas she observed the Texas Panhandle sky with its focus points on the plains and a great canyon of earth history colors streaking across the flat land. Georgia's love of the vast, colorful prairie, plains and sky again gave definition to her life when she discovered Ghost Ranch north of Abiquiu, New Mexico. She fell prey to its charms which were not long removed from the echoes of the "Wild West." These views of prairie, plains and sky became Georgia's muses as she embarked on her step-by-step path with her role models-Alon Bement, Arthur Jerome Dow and Wassily Kandinsky. In this two-part biography of which this is Part I covering the period 1887-1945, Nancy Hopkins Reily "walks the Sun Prairie Land," as if in Georgia's day as a prologue to her family's friendship with Georgia in the 1940s and 1950s. Reily chronicles Georgia's defining days within the arenas of landscape, culture, people and the history surrounding each, a discourse level that Georgia would easily recognize. NANCY HOPKINS REILYy was born in Dallas, Texas about mid-way between the Great Depression of 1929 and when the United States entered World War II in 1941. She was named after a McCall's magazine story with the heroine named Nancy, a name her mother liked. With two brothers she didn't play dolls, but played baseball and football in the neighborhood, caught fireflies at night and climbed the low branch tree in their yard. Since childhood, Reily has divided her time between Texas, Colorado and New Mexico. Her college education began at Gulf Park College, Gulfport, Mississippi and ended with a B.B.A. degree from Southern Methodist University. After college she joined the ranks of marriage, homemaker and motherhood. This led to a career of volunteering for many various organizations. She is also the author of "Classic Outdoor Color Portraits, A Guide for Photographers"; "Georgia O'Keeffe, A Private Friendship, Part II, Walking the Abiquiu and Ghost Ranch Land"; "Joseph Imhof, Artist of the Pueblos" with Lucille Enix; "Half-Past Winter" and "My Wisdom That No One Wants," all from Sunstone Press, and "I Am At An Age," Best of East Texas Publishers. Reily makes her home in Lufkin, Texas.
