The Pot Thief Who Studied Georgia O'Keeffe by J. Michael Orenduff

true. He was fifty years younger than her, but I’d like to think they were lovers just to turn the tables on that geezer Stieglitz.”
    â€œBut she and Stieglitz were at least married.”
    â€œRight. He was fifty-eight when they met and the most powerful person in the entire art world. She was twenty-eight years old and totally unknown.”
    â€œMaybe it was true love.”
    â€œMore like true lust. He used her, Hubie. He used the apartment he lived in with his wife to take nude photographs of O’Keeffe and deliberately timed it so that his wife would walk in on them. She threw him out, which is what he wanted but didn’t have the courage to ask for.”
    â€œWell, he did make her famous.”
    â€œHe made her famous initially, but she made him famous in the long run. He wouldn’t be as widely known today if it weren’t for her. And someone else would have eventually shown her work. It was the paintings that made her famous, not the man.”
    I thought about the nudes of O’Keeffe we saw in the exhibit Susannah took me to. There was something creepy about knowing her husband took those photos.
    In addition to the early nudes, there are thousands of other pictures of O’Keeffe, some of the most famous taken when she was in her eighties, her fierce independence more obvious than in the younger years. The wrinkles from the New Mexico sun couldn’t hide her beauty, even in her eighties and nineties. No wonder there were rumors about her and Hamilton. She was the most photographed woman of the twentieth century. I thought about the words to Elton John’s “Candle in the Wind”:
    Your candle burned out long ago
    Your legend never did
    I doubt that Georgia O’Keeffe worried about her legend. She was too busy doing what she loved.

11
    S usannah left for her night class—it’s Modern American Painters this semester—and I strolled back across the plaza knowing my cupboard was bare. I hadn’t bought groceries in weeks because getting to the store by bus and returning with sacks while using crutches was too much hassle. And now that the cast was off, the battery in the Bronco was dead.
    It’s hard to save either money or your waistline living on restaurant food. I was craving something simple. What I got instead was spaghetti pie, courtesy of Miss Gladys Claiborne, proprietor of the eponymous Miss Gladys’s Gift Shop two doors down from me, where she took up residence after her husband died. Most owners of the galleries, eateries and specialty stores in Old Town retreat to their suburban homes after locking up for the day. Miss Gladys and I are the only two on our street who actually live here, and we have a symbiotic relationship. I provide security for her, and she provides food for me.
    The reality falls short of the theory.
    As a woman raised in a bygone age, she believes a man provides security. Fortunately, she has never needed me to come to her rescue. I suspect she would put up a better fight against an intruder than I would.
    Her cooking … No, you can’t call it that. Assembling is the more accurate word. Her casseroles are assembled from ready-to-eat foods used in the exact quantity of the packages they are sold in. Thus, teaspoons, tablespoons and cupfuls give way to cans, jars, bags and cartons.
    Her spaghetti pie contains one package of spaghetti, one bag of Parmesan cheese, one can of Wolf Brand Chili, one can of Ro*Tel Original Diced Tomatoes & Green Chilies, one container of Philadelphia Savory Garlic cooking cream and one bag of shredded mozzarella cheese.
    â€œThe spaghetti and Parmesan make the crust. Doesn’t that just beat all? You just throw them together and press them against the bottom and sides of a baking dish. Then you dump in the can of chili and the Ro*Tel. You mix the cream cheese and mozzarella together for the topping. Then just bake it until the crust is golden.”
    As usual, she brought