Creativity & Adventure in Northern New Mexico
Red Rock Landscapes Inspire Georgia O’Keefe and Outdoor Adventurers
May 24, 2009
The land and communities scattered amongst the red rock vistas of Northern New Mexico are eminently suited to getting away from it all, and testing personal limits. It matters very little whether those limits involve absorbing the surrounding beauty and channeling it into writing, painting, drawing, weaving or into some outdoor adventure. Northern New Mexico is equal parts destination, inspiration.
Georgia’ O’Keefe’s Home and Studio in Abiquiu, NM
The canyons, mesas and slickrock of northern New Mexico were creative fodder for world-renowned artist Georgia O’Keefe, whose landscapes and scenic details capture the natural world from a thought provoking perspective that fires the imagination. For fans of the artist, and for art history buffs, a short day trip out of Santa Fe may be reason enough for a trip to northern New Mexico.
About an hour north and west of Santa Fe, on a non-descript hilltop overlooking the town of Abiquiu’s main road and the pastureland beyond, Georgia O’Keefe’s home and studio have been painstakingly preserved turned into a museum/gallery showcasing her life and work. The museum collection includes books, furnishings, paintings, and natural artifacts that inspired some aspect of O’Keefe’s art. Owned and administered by the Georgia O’Keefe Museum in Santa Fe, tours of the Georgia O’Keefe Home and Studio are available on a limited basis and by appointment only.
Georgia’ O’Keefe’s Inspirational Ghost Ranch
A forty-five minute drive from O’Keefe’s Abiquiu compound, visitors can tour the infamous Ghost Ranch. Today, Ghost Ranch is a Presbyterian retreat center, but it was privately owned by a friend/patron of O’Keefe’s during the time that she kept a summer home on the ranch and later made that home her primary residence until the time of her death. Ghost Ranch offers guided tours of the property that highlight and pinpoint inspirational landscapes that figure prominently in O’Keefe’s work. It’s an amazing feeling to look out on a specific mesa that inspired one of O’Keefe’s most famous works and viscerally sense her gift for transferring landscape into emotion on canvas.
Outdoor Adventure in Northern New Mexico
Roughly two hours north and west of Santa Fe, Bandelier National Monument offers visitors serene hiking and wildlife viewing in a pristine wilderness setting, and the chance to explore the abandoned cliffside dwellings of the ancestral pueblo peoples who once inhabited the valley and canyon in which the monument is located.
Bandelier National Monument’s 33,000 acres lie within the Jemez Mountains, which turn a mesmerizing golden color in the fall when the native aspens turn. With elevations between 5,000 and just over 10,000 feet, Bandelier’s environment offers pleasant hiking and exploration year-round and the chance to get out in nature and learn a bit about natural history and culture all in one incomparable place.
About eighty miles northeast of Bandelier National Monument, the small former mining town of Red River offers year-round outdoor adventure. Though the Red River mine sis still there, the town is now known as a winter ski haven. In the spring, summer and fall, this friendly mountain village is also known as an ideal base camp for horseback riding and horse pack adventures into the mountains, whitewater rafting trips, mountain biking, hiking trips, backpacking trips, and hunting and fishing excursions.
In the end, northern New Mexico is filled with jaw-dropping vistas that change as the light plays across them; mountains studded with golden ash forests, and powerful whitewater rivers. It’s no wonder that New Mexico’s northern reaches have been an inspiration to artists such as Georgia O’Keeffe and to outdoorsmen in search of mountains to hike and ski, rivers to tame, and canyons to explore.
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