Georgia On My Mind
New Mexico has been a bucket-list destination for me for years; why? Because one of my idols, the artist Georgia O’Keeffe, once called the state home. And while this short trip wouldn’t take me to her home and studio in Abiquiu, about an hour north of Santa Fe, I would at least be able to visit the museum in downtown Santa Fe dedicated to her life and work. For now, that would be enough.
I can’t remember when I first became familiar with her work, but I’m guessing it was during all the times I spent looking through the racks of posters and prints in a poster store at the mall when I was a teenager. I spent many a work break in that store—Prints Plus, I think?—and it was probably there where I met—and fell in love with—both Georgia O’Keeffe and Ansel Adams. Who knew then that I was planting the seeds of what would eventually grow into lifelong love affairs with two artists? A few years later, I used a planner featuring O’Keeffe’s art as my daily planner. For the years and decades that followed, O’Keeffe’s work continued to inspire me. I make sure to look for O’Keeffe’s work in museums I visit, and while I’ve missed plenty of O’Keeffe-centric exhibits in recent years, I was able to see the incredible exhibit at the Peabody Essex Museum in Massachusetts, “Georgia O’Keeffe: Art, Image, Style” in 2018. In fact, I recognized many of the same artifacts in the Santa Fe museum!
Just a few days before I’d be in Santa Fe, I visited the Art Institute of Chicago and made sure to see, among so many incredible pieces of art, O’Keeffe’s work there. And boy, was I in for a treat. Seeing Sky Above Clouds IV (1965), absolutely blew me away. Painted when O’Keeffe was 77, the canvas is massive—three feet by four feet—and hangs between two staircases in the museum. According to the information posted alongside the painting, “O’Keeffe began around 1963 to capture the endless expanses of clouds she had observed from airplane windows during trips all over the world.” As someone obsessed with having the window seat while flying and often staring out at the clouds (and sometimes photographing them), I was awestruck.
Sky Above Clouds IV , Georgia O’Keeffe, Art Institute of Chicago.
In addition to Sky Above Clouds IV, the Art Institute also had on display several other O’Keeffe works: Peru—Machu Pichu, Morning Light (1957), Road—Mesa with Mist (1961), The Black Place (1943), Red Hills with Flowers (1940), The White Place in Sun (1943), Spring (1923-1924), Green Mountains, Canada (1932), It Was Yellow and Pink III (1960), and Black Rock with Blue Sky and White Clouds (1972), and another, different Red Hills with Flowers (1937). Needless to say, I was more than excited to see what Santa Fe had in store. And, again, I couldn’t have been more thrilled.
Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe, New Mexico
In New Mexico, I was in O’Keeffe country. I could see the colors of her landscapes—those deep reds and browns and bright blues—alive around me everywhere I looked. And inside the museum dedicated to her, it’s hard to not feel her spirit and legacy. Spread throughout nine galleries, O’Keeffe’s works are as bold and striking as one might imagine. There are themes, yes: trees, botanicals, place. Then there are the different media: charcoal, watercolor, oil, sculpture, photography. There are photographs of her taken by her husband, the photographer Alfred Stieglitz. And then there are the artifacts of the artist herself: her easel and pigments, her pastels and paintbrushes, her dresses and smocks, cookbooks and kitchen wares. Everywhere, Georgia.
I had reread Georgia: A Novel of Georgia O'Keeffe by Dawn Tripp in anticipation of this trip, and I was again mesmerized by the woman who became an American icon. Her life spanned 98 years—98!!—and in those 98 years, she lived several lifetimes’ worth. As I write this, several days have passed since I walked through the museum and took in the depth and breadth of her work, and I’m still not sure I’ve fully processed what traveling to New Mexico meant to me, what seeing so much of her work meant to me. Next time (and yes, there WILL be a next time), I will travel north to Abiquiu to visit her home. Until then, Georgia on my mind.
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