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2-24 '39
3

feel he has come to take something away from us. (I wanted to say: We get the jitters - how can anyone have to [[the]] nerve to wish to capture Hawaii who has just arrived, laden with leis of aloha!) She understands.

I ask: Which is more genuine inspiration: the quick impression (of a tourist) or the long study (of a native) The latter, she says. then:
"This is nice too"(a hibiscus in her hand) - a typical incoherent remark. Makes my question + her answer to it seem [[strikethrough]]m[[/strikethrough]] frothy.

Her message, and I thank her for it: An artist must see the place as no one else in the world has seen it. The French landscape is a common language now. No one has yet seen the American landscape; nor Hawaii. "Perhaps you'll do it." And: Be true only to yourself in painting.

She says: I do not have to go to N.Y. for anything. Remain here. Study reproductions. She admires Pierre Roy's exhibit - the precise feeling; the patient love for every object in his still life arrangements. To her that is true art. One must strive for that. She asks: do I ever paint a carefully posed still life: I answer yes, corals, seaweed stones. So I paint outdoors. No, only sketches, then indoor compositions. She suggests: the study, then the imagination, the study, the im. etc. 

But why am I writing this: she bothered me with her inconsistencies, her airy egotism; her belittling of my efforts. But I am very glad she came. I need no longer stand in childish awe before such as she is.

Later
I must look at her things at the Academy before I say anything further.