Taos

The story of Georgia O’Keeffe’s New Mexico odyssey begins in Taos. Taos had been attracting artists since 1898 when Ernest Blumenschein and Bert Phillips fell in love with the light, mountains, and sky – all while trying to have a broken wagon wheel repaired.

Taos quickly became a Mecca for artists and those who appreciated art. One of those enthralled was Mabel Dodge Luhan who invited the famous creatives of the day. Among them was O’Keeffe who and promptly fell under the spell of New Mexico. It became her summer destination.

O’Keeffe had learned to drive and was, by most accounts a “fearless” driver. Touring the countryside, O’Keeffe discovered the magic of the Chama Valley known for its spectacular vistas and mountains. It became one of her favorite subjects for her soft but dramatic desert paintings – particularly the flat-topped mesa called the Pedernal. She was said to joke:"It's my private mountain. God told me if I painted it enough, I could have it."

O’Keeffe spent each summer in NM until her husband’s death in 1946. With no reason to return to New York she moved permanently to her home in New Mexico, and Abiquiu..

Two of the places she most loved are open to the public.

Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu

O’Keeffe’s New Mexico paintings depict a landscape of red, black, and white mountains. They have an unearthy coloring and design, as if the scene was filtered through an artist’s eye. And certainly, they were. But as I walked the paths of Ghost Ranch I astounded to see that to a large extent, O’Keeffe painted what eons of geology had created. I could easily see what grabbed her eye and her brush. I was standing there entranced by the panoramas, by the colors, by the sculptured rocks and mountains. Today, visitors in search of that beauty still find it at Ghost Ranch.

Georgia O’Keeffe House

O’Keeffe didn’t live at Ghost Ranch full time. It was actually her summer home. Her main residence, where she lived virtually alone through the winters is up a steep, paved road in the tiny town of Abiquiu. A church, a diminutive library, a few houses are set around a dusty center. Off to the side is a walled compound that was O’Keeffe’s residence.

The only way to visit is by guided tour. We’re told that when O’Keeffe lived there virtually all the land was given to fruit and vegetable gardens. The trip to Santa Fe was long and arduous in the 1950s and the produce didn’t travel well. So while O’Keeffe summered at Ghost Ranch her gardener grew, and the cook canned and froze provisions to last through the long snowy winter.

The house offers a phenomenal view of the Chama Valley. However, it was the house itself, or rather the ruins, including a black door in a long adobe wall that attracted O’Keeffe when she first saw it in 1935. The artist in O”Keeffe was fascinated by that sight, and she painted it several times in different ways. Having fallen in love, O’Keeffe was relentless in her pursuit of the house. Then, she spent three more years waiting while the house was renovated.

O'Keeffe in Santa Fe

O’Keeffe lived in Abiquiu from 1949 to 1984 when she moved to Santa Fe where she died in 1986. Today, Santa Fe is also the site of the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum celebrating the 10 year anniversary (in 2007) of its founding. It is a repository of O’Keeffe’s art, and in acknowledgment of this decade milestone, the city has decreed 2007 the Year of Georgia O’Keeffe.

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