Ghost Ranch
Posted on July 7, 2009 - Filed Under 2009 Workshops
Two weeks ago I set off with my kids to Ghost Ranch, in northwest New Mexico. It is a place that makes my heart sing. I recently met a woman refuses to enter the New Mexico landscape because she said it is “too stark”. This is one of the many things that boggles my mind. Stark? This is the place that invented Paynes Grey, and all the Quinacridones. What would we do without the colors of this desert? The clarity of the air, the solid sureness of the cliffs, the deliberate and dramatic way that Mother Nature shows herself off there. For me it is anything but stark. It is rich with dreamy beauty.
Georgia O’Keefe did not seem to like much but Ghost Ranch. She left Alfred in NYC, and moved there to paint alone.
Eleven years ago I went there as a beaten-up wreck. I was sad. I had just lost a baby, and my father-in-law was very ill. I needed to heal, and fortunately, I met the place and the people to do just that. I hiked and drank good coffee that Laurie Doctor left on my desk. I made art and met lots of good people. Every single day I got a message slip to call home, and I did.
My girl was born that year, and I always correlate her birth with my new beginning as an artist. I had been caught up with infertility for so long, and when she was born I was released. It was like being given a whole new kind of energy. People have often asked how I found time when my kids were small to make so much art, and I tell them, they GAVE me energy. They gave me ideas then, and they still do.
This year I got to go back to Ghost Ranch as a teacher. Full circle, full challenge. There were people there that come every year, as most of us would in a perfect world. Big love and support in a funky old building on the top of a mesa overlooking the world.
From that funky building you can see Chimney Rock, which I try to hike to every morning. It is 1.5 miles uphill, and a nice fast romp down.
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