O'Keeffe's New Mexico home a shrine to her fans

Buick, a child of gray and cold Chicago, never knew O'Keeffe's colors. She couldn't imagine that the places O'Keeffe painted actually existed. Turns out O'Keeffe had become one of New Mexico's best ambassadors.

"When I was able to see Abiquiu and the sun and the landscapes," Buick begins, "I saw these landscapes and thought, 'There's no place on earth that could look like that.'

"But when I moved here, I realized she hadn't done New Mexico justice."

Fledgling artists and their studios now dot Abiquiu. Thick layers of yellow and orange line the Chama River Valley, and women in broad hats hold paintbrushes against the horizon and push color onto the canvases before them.

This landscape, O'Keeffe made it famous. The mountains that surround tiny Abiquiu, they were hers. She claimed them in her heart. It was off one of them, Cerro Pedernal, that she is said to have had her ashes scattered when she died. At her request, there was no memorial service — just O'Keeffe and her mountain.

Back at Georgia O'Keeffe Elementary, eight kids are taking turns telling me how they notice the little things in life more now that they've studied O'Keeffe's flower paintings.

"Something's not just red," said 10-year-old Emily Romero, who hopes to one day be an interior designer. "It's red with a little bit of purple."

Second-grade teachers Monet Korbis and Shelly Montoya make sure every kid who sits in their classroom learns a thing or two about — and from — O'Keeffe. Learning about art and how to see things differently will help the kids as they grow up, Korbis says.

"There's always a part of Georgia O'Keeffe in the kids that leave," she says.

Her students know where and when O'Keeffe was born. They know she was a bit of a loner and might not have wanted to spend a whole lot of time with them, even though she was once a teacher. They know she tried different media — charcoal and clay and watercolor and oils.

"And she didn't care if people liked it or not," says Josh Hoeg, 10. "She wanted people to be inspired by it."

It seems that for O'Keeffe, life does indeed imitate art.

---

On the net: www.okeeffemuseum.org.