15 Oct, 2017;
Ghost Ranch, Abiquiu, NM
I can't believe I'm seeing the exact places O'Keeffe painted!!!
Ghost Ranch is over 21,000 acres of history. It all began a couple million years ago . . . OK, I'm not going back that far but you should know that it's one of the top 10 worldwide sites for dinosaur fossils (maybe that's where O'Keeffe got the idea to use those cow skulls). There is a museum on site that covers the geology and paleontology.
In 1776, the King of Spain awarded the Piedra Lumbra Land Grant, including the Ghost Ranch area, to Captain Pedro Martin Serrano. Over time the land was divided among heirs, bits and pieces sold off. The deed to Ghost Ranch was lost in a poker game!!
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| Meditation Garden |
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| Ghost House Meditation Garden |
The Archuleta's owned the ranch next; they built the Ghost House, and ran an infamous cattle rustling operation throughout the southwest.
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| Ghost House |
Then, the ranch was acquired by Carole Stanley (actually she got it in a divorce settlement) and developed as a dude ranch "Rancho de los Brujos". About the same time that O'Keeffe first visited and rented a small cottage, the ranch changed hands again. Not sure how 'los Brujos' which means 'the witches' got translated as 'Ghost', but there you have it.
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| O'Keeffe's cottage |
O'Keeffe came every summer to paint and eventually purchased a small house and 7.5 acres from the new owners of the dude ranch. She gave her iconic skull sketch to the owner, Arthur Pack, to use for promotional materials.
Today, the Presbyterian Church owns the property and runs it as an education and retreat center.
The O'Keeffe Landscape Tour
There is no public access to the O'Keefe house - but you can sign up for either a bus tour or horseback tour that goes by the house while touring the iconic landscape that she painted for over 50 years. Along the route, we pass almost a dozen locations that give the exact perspective one finds in specific O'Keeffe paintings - what a thrill!!
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| I know this from the painting!!!! |
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| Chimney rocks and the purple hills!!!! |
Cerro Pedernales butte in the distance. This was O'Keeffe's favorite mountain. She said that she dreamed that God told her if she painted it enough, she could have it. I think it appears in more than 28 paintings. Her ashes are spread on the top of the butte.
I picked the horseback tour of course!
Pro tip: Never again tell them that you have riding experience. I got Zorro - who bites and can't stand any horse behind him. So, I had to bring up the rear where I couldn't hear anything, ate dust for 90 minutes and had to suffer Zorro turning his head and sniffing my boot (as though he was considering biting me) every time I asked him to do anything. OTH, he was a gaited horse and had a lovely fast walk, and a floaty trot.
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| Everyone else up ahead listening to the talk and trying their best to not fall off their horses while taking pictures |
O'Keeffe's house with 360 degrees of incredible views! She had extra windows put in the house so she could paint from anywhere inside. This made the house awfully warm in the summer. She used to climb a ladder outside to the roof to sleep in the summer (even into her 90's). The ladder is still there - but Zorro wouldn't stand still long enough to take a picture (he knew what he was supposed to do, dammit, and it wasn't to stand still while everyone else walked on!!)
Another famous spot. O'Keeffe mis-identified the dead tree in the center as a Cedar (actually, it was a juniper) but here it still stands, 80 years after she painted it against the purplish mounds in the background. Juniper is very resistant to rot.
Movies have been made here
While I came here only for the O'Keeffe connection, others come for the dinosaur fossils, others for the retreat center, and still others for the movie history. Among the movies that filmed here, was City Slickers. The cabin and corral near the entrance to Ghost Ranch are the only remains of the filming here.
