Georgia’s Mountain, view of The Pedernal taken from Ghost Ranch main building July 7, 2007, photo © 2007 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.
In June of 1934, Georgia O’Keeffe visited Ghost Ranch for the first time. She purchased the house where she’d been staying on the ranch in 1940.
Of The Pedernal, the flat-topped mountain in the Jemez Mountains, she once jokingly said:
It’s my private mountain. It belongs to me. God told me if I painted it enough, I could have it.
Here are some links to O’Keeffe paintings featuring The Pedernal:
[…] -View of The Pedernal with Ghost Ranch Valley below, taken from Ghost Ranch main building by ybonesy, July 7, Read full story… […]
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I’d know that mountain in my sleep! Thank you for the lovely memory.
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Mountains define you. You cannot define
Them.
— May Sarton, “Colorado Mountains” (1948)
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It was a treat to see your photograph, then see how Georgia wove the mountain into several paintings. I wonder, have you ever been inside her house? I have heard it was sparsely furnished (in a lovely, uncluttered way), but with beautiful flowers. Do you know?
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When I worked at Torreon (Sandoval county) I saw that mountain one day when driving that Cuba – Coyote road (forget the number). It looked familiar and later learned that I HAD seen it some O’Keefe paintings. It’s a great looking mtn, but then that whole territory is magnificent!
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One more thing…this reference to Georgia O’Keefe reminds me of a lady I met one day in the DFW airport on the way back from Orlando (where I had attended the over-sea job fair). She (a Texan) was on her way to Albuquerque International Airport (ABQ) like me, and was an O’Keefe fanatic. She was probably in her mid-40’s and dressed in a weird TexMex-New Mexico kind of way with an O’Keefe pin on her blouse. She was terribly excited because she was going to spend a week at Ghost Ranch on a workshop or retreat or something all about O’Keefe’s life. I thought it was strange that this lady would be so excited about going to New Mexico, a place I had lived my whole life. (Well, now I know since I haven’t lived there for 7 years! I am homesick!)
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Beautiful photo, ybonesy. I’m sitting on the porch at Mabel’s, the one out over the Mother Ditch, checking red Ravine. Smells are wafting across the wind from the kitchen. Weather is beautiful. And it’s so green for this time of year. I hope to post sometime over the next few days. Maybe tonight. It’s heaven to be back. Something about this place just feels like home. Wish I had had time to visit the Ranch but not this trip. Maybe next time.
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There is an austerity, a cleanliness, to such landscapes, which is compelling.
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I’ve not been inside O’Keeffe’s house, Sinclair. Ghost Ranch offers guided tours, which I haven’t taken. I’d love to, though.
mimbresman – hey, almost time to get your dose of NM! I know what you mean about not realizing how beautiful NM is. Takes leaving it to get it sometimes.
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QM: the food at Mabel Dodge Luhan is so much better than anything you get at these large conference centers. It’s much easier to feed 24 or even 40 people and do it elegantly than it is to feed 200+. But what I wanted to say was I’m glad you’re back in NM. Home away from home.
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Let’s hope Mabel Dodge doesn’t serve the Opla Baja Talapia Tacos! At least without the Prune Puffs. . . .
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O-pla-di-o-pla-da…the Mabel Dodge Talapia Tacos are gourmet fare compared to the Ghost Ranch fish sticks! Bring on the prune puffs!
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[…] of a white and purple feather with The Pedernal in the background. I hadn’t showed her the post I’d done earlier with my photo of that sacred mountain, but on the drive back to Albuquerque […]
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Mmmmmm…fish sticks. God, I used to love them. They were served every Friday in my grade school cafeteria. I didn’t realize it was for the Catholics amongst us. When I did the Artist’s Way several years ago (and got to the exercise about eating favorite childhood foods), fish sticks topped my list. I tried several brands, but none compared with the two rectangular pieces served up on white bread every Friday at Prospect Park Elementary.
I stand by fish sticks. And Twizzlers.
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Wow, quite the conversation about the food at Mabel’s! It’s all good, it’s all good. And no fish sticks! We haven’t had the Opla Baja Talapia Tacos yet but I’ll keep you posted for sure. I think I might have liked the prune puffs. It’s heaven to be here. But I’m pretty exhausted. Every day I end the day very full.
Sinclair, fish sticks, I loved those little breaded things as a kid. Haven’t had them in forever because I’ve developed an allergy to fish as an adult. So now I have to stay away from fish sticks. And the Twizzlers? I just don’t have the same taste for them I used to. What’s the world coming to?
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I loved fish sticks, too. The rectangles that came in a box. One of my favorite foods, along with TV dinners. But alas, my processed food infatuations long ago turned into rejection, as infatuations have a tendency to do. That and the horse hooves issue ;).
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Hmmpf! I’m turning my nose and walking in the other direction with my jumbo-size bag of you-know-what! Don’t even ask for a sample. I’m not sharing.
Speaking of TV dinners, my niece recently worked at a grocery store and described in detail all carts loaded with TV dinners. I had sort of forgotten that they still existed, but went on a hunt for them the next chance I got. She told me the most popular brand is Hungry Man, so I bought a few of those along with ones that had irresitible photos on the covers. Unhappily, they all tasted so wretched that I had to throw them in trash–it didn’t matter if it was the Sirloin Tip Dinner or the Fresh-Caught Halibut. The only salvageable part of the meal was the brownie, cut in a perfect square.
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Trader Joes has good frozen premade dinners. Have you ever tried those?
BTW, I have to chuckle every time I see a search on the term “horse hooves,” which now, apparently, pulls up red Ravine. I’m pretty sure you’re right, though, about Twizzlers not containing horse hooves. I should do a search on the urban myths website.
In the mean time, I did a search on “Twizzlers ingredients” and found this link — http://snacks.cyberpunks.org/twizzlers.html — which you MUST read, as it is an artists/writers report/rating on your favorite candy. I swear I did not fill out the report!
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I read it, and throw in into the barrel with Steve Almond’s comments. Unacceptable! Unfair!
I leave for a road trip on Friday. Will I buy some Cherry Pull-And-Peel for the road? Obviously.
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Yes, I’m not here to gloat that the author of that report (what was his name, Sir Lancelot or something) sided with me. I am certain that if we were to conduct a poll on Twizzlers, we’d get just as many people loving them as we would those questioning whether they were made of real foodstuff.
Twizzlers are a misunderstood chemical, I mean, vegemite, I mean, legume. No, what I really want to say is Twizzlers show the wonders of corn syrup and nail polish remover, how the two together combust to form a texture reminiscint of rainy evenings (in the form of rubber boots and plastic raincoats) on a hot summer day.
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p.s., I have come to see through this blog that all roads lead to Twizzlers.
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In a coincidence too good to ignore, I JUST last evening had an interesting conversation with the Happy Hour Hostess in the downtown Orlando Marriott concierge area (I’m in Orlando this week on business). Recently, this Marriott began to put out CANDY for guests . . . M&M’s, Peanut M&M’s, Raisinets and (drum roll, please) what looked to be TWIZZLERS beautifully arranged in a tall glass like they were flowers. On the one hand, all roads do indeed lead to Twizzlers. On the other hand, we must always be mindful of what we are eating. I went to grab at least a dozen Twizzlers, when the hostess suddenly came forward and literally stopped my hand in mid-grab, whispering, “Those aren’t real Twizzlers. I had to buy a substitute. What’s in there is NOT REAL CANDY!” Whew . . . I almost fell for them! Mere substitutes for the real corn-syrup-nail-polish-remover- and-rubber-boots-and-plastic-raincoats-THING. There is a Twizzler’s God.
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Whew, and Twizzlers angels come in the form of Happy Hour Hostesses! I wonder what fake Twizzlers are called.
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Fake Twizzlers are called Red Vines. They are horrible, tough, tasteless objects that come in a blue and white bag. Very bad stuff. This Happy Hour Hostess is a real class act, I can see that from hundreds of miles away.
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[…] to Mabel’s heyday in Taos; to the likes of Gertrude Stein, D. H. Lawrence, Frieda Lawrence, Georgia O’Keeffe, Dorothy Brett, Aldous Huxley, Alfred Stieglitz, and Carl Jung. In the 1920’s, a creative […]
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[…] But have you ever seen Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings, then longed to visit Abiquiú or the Pedernal near Ghost Ranch, New Mexico? It throws a whole other perspective on a lifetime of painted desert. What about Hemingway’s […]
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[…] have gone before; their sage advice is hard earned and welcome. Recently, I perused paintings by Georgia O’Keeffe, the photographs of Minor White, and a book of Judy Chicago’s stunning clay work in The […]
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I got to tour her house in Abiquiu in July 08 and it is amazing. It was supposedly just like she left it and the woman who led the tour used to work for her as a young teenager so told us
a few stories about what it was like to know her. It is sparsely furnished like any adobe house would be back then. She had added huge picture windows in almost every room and had piles of rocks everywhere that she had collected. I will never forget it.
Some of her paintings are still there hanging in her studio. The courtyard is the scene of some of her later paintings and you can see where she got her inspiration. She also had a huge garden on the grounds of the house that was watered by the village acequia. I also toured ghost ranch behind her house there, but did not get to go into her ghost ranch house — I don’t think it is open to the public.
I think the Abiquiu house tour is offered by the Georgia Okeeffemuseum and the ghost ranch tour is offered there at the ranch giftshop. If you ever get the chance to go visit, it
is a trip you will cherish for a lifetime.
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Thanks for sharing your impressions with us, Jenny. We’ve seen the house from the outside, and what struck me was how cool it must be inside on account of all the trees planted around it. Fruit trees, and old ones, like quince. I’m not sure there was quince, but the trees seemed old, heritage type. And also, how closely located those homes up at the top of the mesa were. Although she lived a solitary life, I think she must have always felt like she was part of a community.
I would LOVE to tour the house and plan to some day soon. QM and I actually have a plan to do that in 2010, depending on how things turn out for the year.
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