New Mexico Outdoor 

Roughing It In Luxury-Abiquiu, New Mexico 505.901.7321

Abiquiu
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New Mexico Dept of Tourism-By Mike Stauffer

Abiquiu Lake
This manmade lake on the Rio Chama offers some of the finest fishing in northern New Mexico. Reptile fossils 200 million years old have been found in the area. Scenery in the area has inspired artists for decades, including famed painter Georgia O’Keeffe.


"Some brave and curious ones make their way to my porch".. 
Napoleon Garcia/The Genizaro & the Artist

   Nearly six years ago, now, Gabriela and I visited The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe. We fell for Cerro Pedernal, which she painted many times, and made a pilgrimage out to Georgia O'Keefe Country to see it first hand.

   We found the Village of Abiquiu, and after surveying it's beautiful "period" church, I saw, in the very corner...a sign saying Tourist Information-Open! It looked to me like a home..and since it was Sunday morning and still..I began to turn away ...when somebody shouted .."Hey...what are you afraid of?"

   Well..Napoleon Garcia, who worked for Georgia O'Keeffe for decades, gave us an amazing tour of not only Abiquiu, but the region, right from his porch! It was one of the reasons we decided to relocate out here. His grasp of the History of Abiquiu, his people, The Genizaro 
...is in the form of the Native tradition ..as storyteller. 

   Napoleon recently published The Genizaro & the Artist with his wife Analinda. A Genizaro claims ancestry of both the Colonial Spanish and nomadic Indian tribes of the area and is pronounced he-KNEE-zar-o. The artist in the title is Georgia O'Keeffe. The book is a village insider's narrative of what it was like having a world renown artist as a neighbor.

The Village of Abiquiu, New Mexico, is easily missed by the casual traveller who might think that Abiquiu consists of only the post Office and a few stores along Hwy 84, about 46 miles NW of Santa Fe. If one were to go up the road, past the Post Office, onto the above mesa, one would be stepping back into an era of early Spanish and Native American History!

Abiquiu is established on the site of an old abandoned Indian Pueblo. In the mid 18th century it became a settlement of Spaniards and Genizaros. Like many Northern New Mexico Villages, Abiquiu has attracted various artists who come to this part of the world to capture the beauty of the landscape. One such artist was Georgia O'Keeffe, who first came to this area in the early 1930's. She bought a home in the village of Abiquiu in the mid 1940's and lived there for over 40 years. Napoleon lived around the corner and worked for Georgia O'Keeffe the 40 years she called Abiquiu home.


 

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If you would like to experience this slice of northern New Mexico
culture as we did, you can visit Napoleon in his front-porch gallery
right on the plaza in the village of Abiquiu. If his OPEN sign is
out don't be afraid to venture in.


Click Above Book Cover To Purchase $15.95

Read An Excerpt: The Ditch

 


Napoleon Garcia-Abiquiu Elder


Abiquiu Ruin With The White Place in Backround By: 2010 Featured Photographer Kirt Kempter


La Llorona-Napoleon Garcia tells his version of "The Crying Woman".



[graphic] Women's History Banner
[graphic] Georgia O'Keeffe Home and Studio



[photo] Purple Hills near Abiquiu, 1935, oil on canvas
Digitized image courtesy of Michelangelo.Com, Inc.

  [photo] Georgia O'Keeffe Home and Studio
Photograph by Jack Boucher, HABS/HAER, NPS
The home and studio of the artist Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986) in Abiquiu, New Mexico (approximately 50 miles northwest of Santa Fe), is one of the most important artistic sites in the southwestern United States. The buildings, their immediate surroundings, and the views they command of the magnificent landscape that inspired many of O'Keeffe's best-known paintings all combine to provide insight into the vision and process of a major figure in 20th century American art. This insight becomes particularly useful for evaluating the work of an artist whose life and persona have taken on mythical proportions within our national culture. O'Keeffe has become, according to critic Mark Stevens, "an iconic figure, a woman who represents an essential version of the American dream." O'Keeffe purchased the Abiquiu property from the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Santa Fe in 1945, after eyeing the house and grounds--and attempting to buy them--for some ten years. Discovering the house in the early 1930s during one of her frequent visits to northern New Mexico, O'Keeffe moved permanently from New York to New Mexico in 1949. The house in Abiquiu became her primary residence until 1984, when she moved to Santa Fe two years prior to her death at the age of 98. In 1989, the Georgia O'Keeffe Foundation became owner and manager of the Abiquiu property. The Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to perpetuating the artistic legacy of Georgia O'Keeffe for the public benefit, began a program to preserve and maintain the house and its contents as one of the most important artist's home and studio complexes of the 20th century. The Foundation has recently transferred the Georgia O'Keeffe Home and Studio to the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum. To make a reservation to visit the Home and Studio call 505-685-4539.
 

Women's History Home | National Register Home

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Chama River Outside of Abiquiu

By: James Orr for New Mexico Dept of Tourism

The Rio Chama winds through northern New Mexico before joining forces with the Rio Grande. This scenic river provides both water and recreational opportunities for the region, not to mention some terrific photo opportunities of rural New Mexican life.

Also See: An Abiquiu Outing (Scenic Drive)

 

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