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okeefe, p. 2

i work very hard out here. i rise early and work through the day. if you werent here here today id be starting the new painting i t ought of in washington. i have 2 drawings done on it already. lst i have to mix m y colors. i have to hunt among all my colors--im very disorderly. i have pieces, samples of color that i leave on pieces of cardboard. i decide which colors to mix in the morning and work all day on the painting.

yes, i have helped the people in the village a lot. new water system. bought 5 miles of pipe and a tank. there was trouble with the television booster station--it wasnt legal--i dont watch television but i got mixed up with it and provided money for the educational tv booster. i used to send kids to school--to universities and private schools--but now i just give money to the schools and let them pick the kids.

i always felt sympathetic to the catholic church. you get acquainted with it out there. the church has put a thin veil over the whole valley--you always come upon crosses in the least likely places. but i could never be a catholic. as for the presbyterians, i see them now. for 15 years i couldn't see them. the indians in peru have a way of passing over you with an eye and not seeing. i practiced that with the presbyterians. they were transparent. but i have changed a little--i had a girl work for me here who came from the presbyterains and she was pretty good. i dont know why i turned against them. the first day they came one of the ministers came up to me and said hello girlie, how are you? nobody calls me girlie. i mean i don't mind what people call me but nobody calls me girlie.

as a child i fell in love with the catholic church. i had an aunt who used to take me. it smells good, the windows are pretty, the priest's garments are pretty. i had another aunt who took me to the congregational church--there was nothing attractive about that at all. but the catholic church was a pleasure to me. i think i noticed also when i was young that all kinds of people were mixed up in the catholic church, whereas in the others there was only the color and smell of the very rich. a child learns a lot about religions. i had it figured out pretty well then.

[[strikethrough]] [[?]] [[/strikethrough]] but i couldnt be a catholic. there are a lot of things about it that i dont subscribe to. once i went to a marriage ceremony and heard the text for the first tie. the woman has no chance at all. i feel im a very religious person--religion to me means respect for people--but im not in a religion. i mean all those religions are made. i can accept that. im willing to have them make a really superi religion.

i might be a buddhist. i like the art that came out of buddhism much more than the art that came out of the catholic church. ive never stayed very long in i taly for that reason. i was in rome for 3 or 4 days and came right home. there is a lot in rome that isnt catholic. i have a friend who knows the pops and said the other day she was going to take me to rome this christmas to meet the pople.. i won't. there is a tranquility and peace in buddhist art that i dont find in catholic art.

i didnt want to get married myself. he insisted on it. i had lived with stieglitze for 7 years prior to that, taking all the scandal. i didnt see any reason for the marriage i refused to say love honor and obey