Megan O'Grady's 'How It Feels to Be Alive' Explores Art, Empathy, and Personal History

Megan O'Grady's new book 'How It Feels to Be Alive' examines five artworks by Agnes Martin, Carrie Mae Weems, Berthe Morisot, Barbara Kruger, and Pope.L, interweaving their histories with O'Grady's own life experiences. The book opens with Martin's 'Friendship' (a six-foot gold-leaf grid), which O'Grady encountered in her late 20s during a period of loneliness. O'Grady traces Martin's path to grid paintings, her relationship with textile artist Lenora Tawney, and Tawney's gift of 'White Flower' to the Guggenheim. Later chapters explore Weems's 'Kitchen Table Series' and Morisot's self-portraits in relation to O'Grady's motherhood; Kruger's 'Untitled (Your Body is a Battleground)' and her interview with O'Grady for the New York Times; and Pope.L's 'Flint Water Project,' which addresses racial and class divides. The book concludes with Beverly Pepper's large-scale sculptures and a visit to Chaco Canyon, threatened by fracking in 2026. O'Grady, a professor at the University of Colorado, draws on her childhood visits to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and her career profiling artists for magazines.