Georgia O’Keeffe and Ghost Ranch
Georgia O’Keeffe’s House at Ghost Ranch
This weekend I finished reading Anita Pollitzer’s memoir about Georgia O’Keeffe, A Woman On Paper
It wasn’t until yesterday I remembered I toured O’Keeffe’s house in Abiquiu, New Mexico in 2000.
I spent two weeks at Ghost Ranch in the fall of 2000 attending an art workshop and I went with some classmates down to Abiquiu for the tour. While fascinating, it was also a bit weird to be traipsing through and gawking at someone’s personal life. Not much had been done to the house and what really stuck in my mind was they showed us the container with the tea leaves for the tea she drank daily, kinda weird to me they still had it 14 years after her death (how long does tea keep?).
The house is no longer open for tours so it was a wonderful opportunity to see how a talented and focused artist lived, but I always remember it as a bit creepy also.
Many of us in the class also drove over to look at the area around O’Keeffe’s house at Ghost Ranch, which has never been open for tours. The above picture is her house and the amazing view she had. The best piece of land at Ghost Ranch in my opinion.
Below was O’Keeffe’s view of El Pedernal, which she often painted, from the house.
How can one not make amazing art surrounded by such stunning colors and landscape. I’d move back to Northern New Mexico in a heartbeat if I won the lottery. I grew up in Los Alamos, only 40 miles from Abiquiu and I very much miss the southwestern scenery.
El Pedernal as seen from Georgia O’Keeffe’s House at Ghost Ranch
When I was a kid, I knew Ghost Ranch as the Ghost Ranch Living Museum and they had a lot of desert animals like a zoo. I’m not sure I spent much time appreciating the scenery but animals were very cool as they were in small cages and very close and scary: wolves, mountain lions, snakes and I’ll never forget the gila monster, ick.
Although my favorite spot on the drive past Ghost Ranch was Echo amphitheater just up the road from the animals. Definitely a place to visit if you are in Northern New Mexico.
Echo Amphitheater
Posted by Lisa in: Artists, Book Reviews and Comments
jafabrit said,
September 17, 2007 @ 7:17 am
Enjoyed your blog entry today and the pics. I have not been to nm yet,but I am hoping to visit my friend (she just moved to Albuquerque last year) when she opens her gallery in a month of so. How wonderful you got to see Ghost Ranch and be in the place O’Keefe worked and lived.
Olga said,
September 17, 2007 @ 10:34 am
Wondrous photographs. I especially love the one of the house and surroundings: such colours, as you say. We were in NM in 2002, and as a long time admirer of O’Keeffe I insisted that we tour the countryside extensively as well as spending time at the church in Taos. Like you, however, I find visiting people’s homes somewhat creepy, and so although I have a beautiful book of photographs of O’K’s home (with her in some of them) I had absolutely no desire to visit. Strangely enough a friend later gave me a recipe book from O’K’s kitchen.
The colours of NM are something quite special, and I would return there and to Arizona in a flash. I subscribed to Arizona Highways for years after our initial visit there in 1982 just to hold on to those colours. Having been brought up there your head must be full of such a treasure house.
Karen Christensen said,
September 18, 2007 @ 7:30 pm
So nice to see these photos. As a former Santafean now firmly settled in the midwest this was a real treat to see a bit of home.
Katherine said,
September 24, 2007 @ 2:33 am
I so much enjoyed reading this post - and it’s really great to see New Mexico through the eyes of a New Mexican. I visited in 2006 for a convention but unfortunately spent too much tied to the towns and didn’t see enough of the land. Those colours are just wonderful.