Any serious discussion of Georgia O’Keeffe’s work is bound to touch upon her provocative use of feminine imagery.
The great American painter is celebrated not only for her renditions of Southwestern landscapes and New York skyscrapers, but also for her iconic, colorful flowers. Despite repeated denials by the artist prior to her death 30 years ago, critics have long held that those flowers were overt allusions to female genitalia.
Allison Wint, a substitute teacher at a middle school in Battle Creek, Mich., told the Detroit Free Press that she was hoping to provoke a thoughtful dialogue about historical interpretations of O’Keeffe’s work on Friday when she used the word “vagina” during a discussion with eighth graders.
Now Wint claims that the verbal reference to female anatomy – a word she freely admits to having used – has cost her a job at Harper Creek Middle School.
“Yes, I did say that word; however, I was saying it in the context of art history,” she told CBS affiliate WWMT. “I wasn’t being vulgar.”
Wint told the Free Press that, in total, she estimates she used the word 10 times during the course of the lecture, prompting giggles from her students, but eventually a substantive discussion.
She told the paper she also remembers saying: “Imagine walking into a gallery when [O’Keeffe] was first showing her pieces, and thinking, ‘Am I actually seeing vaginas here; am I a pervert? I’m either a pervert or this woman was a pervert.’ ”
The next day, according to Wint, she was reprimanded by a school official, who noted that she had said the word “vagina . . . without previous approval.”
The official told her that referring to female reproductive organs without approval violated school policy, Wint told the Free Press.
She told the paper that she was instructed to gather her belongings and leave the school within one hour.
“She said there are a thousand other ways to teach controversy, and that it was inappropriate,” Wint told the Free Press.
“I was really invested in those kids,” she added. “And I miss them a lot.”
Asked to comment on Wint’s allegations, the district denied she was fired.
O’Keeffe, a giant figure in 20th century American art, has stirred interpretive debate and speculation for decades – almost all of it centered around her flower paintings.
“There are few artists in history whose work is consistently reduced to the single question: flowers or vaginas?” the Guardian noted last month.
(c) 2016, The Washington Post ยท Peter Holley
