The Atmosphere in artist GEORGIA O`KEEFFE, Abiquiu, New Mexico home and studio
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"The days you work are the best days."
"When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not."
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986) bought her house in Abiquiu in 1945, which is now owned by the Museum
"To me it is the best place in the world, and I cannot imagine a more wonderful place. It has always been secluded and solitary. When I first went there, it was only one house with one room—which had a ghost living in it, so everyone was afraid to come."
"Georgia O’Keeffe first came to Abiquiu when she was spending the summer near Alcade, New Mexico, where there were some beautiful sand hills to paint. O’Keeffe remembers looking in particular at one house that was high up, isolated from the town on a peninsula, wedged between two gullies. It was empty, and there was a wall in bad repair where a tree had fallen."
“However, when I took my pots and pans and moved them to Abiquiu, I knew that was now my home, even though I continue to return to Ghost Ranch each summer to paint, or whenever I can find an excuse to get there. When you start making a home, it is difficult to stop changing it, imagining it different. If I thought of building a house from scratch today, I would make it so simple that it would make most houses look like some kind of Chinese puzzle.”
"Interior furnishings do not follow a particular style. Simple unpainted wooden beds were built especially, but other furniture represents years of collecting. With the exception of O’Keeffe’s work, there is little art. Among the art, however, is a Calder mobile over the living room fireplace and a Juan Hamilton sculpture."
"O’Keeffe returned to Ghost Ranch in the summers, when construction made it impossible for her to work and live at Abiquiu. Ghost Ranch, which lies north of Abiquiu, is a secluded place dominated by a rocky mountain range that towers dramatically above it. This dry rocky landscape is completely different from the flat verdant Chama Valley that Abiquiu overlooks. O’Keeffe has lived and worked at Ghost Ranch since 1934, and she spent summers there with Stieglitz when she was living in New York. "
"Surmounted only by beams, the Roofless Room provides an unassuming backdrop for O’Keeffe’s cast-epoxy sculpture, Abstraction, 1945."
"A recurring image in the artist’s oeuvre appears inWhite Patio with Red Door, 1960, in the sitting room; the painting was inspired by a wall with a large double-door, in the patio. The raku sculpture is by Juan Hamilton, whose work in clay once inspired O’Keeffe to try her own hand at this medium."
“I haven’t anything you can get along without,” says the artist, explaining the austerity of her small bedroom, which was formerly a shed for two wagons. “This is my corner; you can’t have much less than this.” The rebuilt fireplace wards off the winter cold. Nearby, the hand from a Buddha statue is raised in abhaya mudra."
"The view from the studio—once a windowless space that sheltered cattle—is echoed in the spare grandeur of the artist’s paintings. Dark ceramic forms are by Hamilton."
"Dedicated to making every space aesthetically satisfying, the artist adorned an adobe bench in the sitting room with natural forms, including a rattlesnake skeleton recessed under glass."
"The Indian Room took its name from the narrow adobe ledges that early Indian inhabitants used as beds. Having faithfully restored the wooden ceiling and adobe walls, O’Keeffe recognized that “building in adobe is like a disease. Once you start using it, you can’t really ever stop.” A Pueblo Indian pot glows in this context."
"The artist has often painted the rugged hills beyond the corral."
"Above an old doorway that was once a main entrance to the Abiquiu house, embedded beams add strength to adobe construction."
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