In Search of Georgia O’Keeffe

Yesterday Kongo visited the famous Ghost Ranch near the small town of Abiquiu in Northwest New Mexico.  The monkey was trying to find traces of the famous Georgia O’Keeffe who lived and worked in this area here from 1929 until her death in 1986.  Georgia was a reclusive soul and as Kongo wandered the Ghost Ranch trails and canyons he realized why this was such a perfect place for someone like her.  The light, the colors, the stillness, the smell of piñon, the crunch of hiking shoes on red New Mexico dirt.  All of this seems to draw you into the essence of her famous works of the cliffs and mountains of this wonderful area.

As a young little monkey growing up in the 1950s and sixties, Kongo well remembers driving about dusty, rutted roads in this area in the back of a Nash Rambler station wagon while his mother would ooh and ash over this butte or that cliff and exclaim, “Look, look…that’s Georgia O’Keeffe!”  At the time all the little monkey saw was a bunch of rocks but finally, all these years later, he gets it.  Mother also read Zane Grey out loud as we explored this area each summer for several years and the spirits of those exciting characters still live here.

Maybe that’s why Ghost Ranch is such a fitting name.

Travel safe.  Have fun.

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• That’s the Spirit: O’Keeffe’s Kachinas (artnews.com)