Georgia O’Keeffe’s Black Place

As one of the foremost, if not the foremost American artist of the 20^th Century, Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings hang in most of the top art museums around the country. Rather than fading away, her reputation seems to be growing stronger over time. One of her paintings, Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1, sold at auction for $43 million in 2016! And most of her famous paintings were done while staying or living in New Mexico.

O’Keeffe first visited New Mexico in 1917. By the end of the 1920s, she was staying in New Mexico for part of the year on a regular basis – first in Taos and then by the mid-1930s in the Ghost Ranch/Abiquiu area. She would eventually buy houses at both Ghost Ranch and in Abiquiu and started living year-round in New Mexico in 1949. She continued to live in New Mexico until her death at the age of 98 in 1986. She once wrote to a friend, “… the country seems to call me in a way that one has to answer it …”

One of the locations in New Mexico that inspired many of her paintings from the 1940s is a “badland” area a little more than 100 miles to the west of Ghost Ranch and Abiquiu in the middle of Navajo country. She called the area the Black Place. With the roads not being what they are today, her trips to the Black Place were serious expeditions that included several days of camping out with one of her friends at her chosen painting location.

Surprisingly, the Black Place is very accessible today. Yet you would never know that you were passing it as you zoomed by on U.S. Highway 550. Yes, you will see amazing landscapes on both sides of the highway, but there will be no sign saying this it or a sign showing you where to turn for a closer look at Georgia O’Keeffe’s Black Place!

If you want to check out the Black Place, you’ll take Interstate 25 from Santa Fe or Albuquerque to Bernalillo. From there, you’ll head out on U.S. Highway 550 all the way to the Black Place. Your trip will not be a wasted effort as U.S. Highway 550 can easily be called a “Geological Wonderland!” The constantly changing landforms along the way are guaranteed to grab your attention. And they’ll even be better on your drive home when the sun is at a lower angle.

As you travel on U.S. 550, you’ll be passing: an anticline that attracts geologists from all over the country to study; one of the nation’s largest volcanic fields with dozens of volcanic plugs; an endless array of sandstone mesas of different shapes and colors; and several amazingly eerie badlands with their strange shapes, bands of colors, fossils, and petrified wood.

To top it off, U.S. Highway 550 is also the gateway to Chaco Canyon – the foremost concentration of prehistoric ruins in the country and one of a handful of UNESCO designated World Heritage Sites in the country. (Click here to see the many posts in this blog that feature the wonders along the U.S. 550.)

When you reach Mile Marker 111 on U.S. 550, start looking to your left. You’ll soon notice the black and gray hills with white bands and a few other colors thrown in for good measure. You’ll also see plenty of oil and gas wells on both sides of the road. Now start looking for a gravel oil well service road going off to your left.

If you reach the Red Mesa Express gas station on your right or the turnoff for Chaco Canyon on your left, you’ve gone too far. Turn around and head back 1.2 or 1.3 miles to the oil well service road.

Make the turn onto the oil well service road. Even though you are in the middle of the Navajo Nation, this service road along with the well pads and the Black Place are all on public land managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The greater surrounding area is a mixture of Navajo, BLM, State, and private land. And as long as you remain on BLM land, you will not be trespassing and are welcome to wander.

Once on the oil service road it will soon split. Bear to the left and follow the road to where it ends at the well pad in front of you. Once at the pad, pull off of the road and park your car. Parking your car off the service road will keep the well accessible to any service vehicles that may come along while you’re checking out the Black Place.

Your adventure now becomes quite simple, just get out of the car and start wandering!

Having active oil and gas wells around you may not be exactly what you were hoping for in a wilderness adventure. And the wells may not be the best treatment for a cultural landmark such as the Black Place. There is, however, an active debate going on right now on creating a buffer around Chaco Canyon to protect the area from further oil and gas exploration.

On the bright side, the well service road does make accessing the Black Place quite easy. The service road lets you get into the area without parking on the highway and hopping a fence. And once you start wandering away from the well pad, the well becomes way less noticeable. And whether the well is there or not, the dramatic landscape that inspired Georgia O’Keeffe is still there and for all practical purposes remains unchanged. And maybe the landscape will inspire you too!

I know in my case, I can’t wait to go back to see if I can find some of the exact locations that she painted!