Historic Santa Fe

After we had thoroughly covered the balloon festival, we could focus on all the other wonderful things New Mexico has to offer. We had such a long list of things we wanted to do and see and we didn't make it to all of them, we will just have to go back!

One day we made the hour-ish long drive to Santa Fe for a day trip! I had heard about how wonderful Santa Fe is and was so excited to see, experience, and explore this beautiful city.

Our first stop was at the Georgia O'Keeffe museum.

I have always loved Georgia O'Keeffe's art, she saw the world in such a colorful and unique way, I love seeing her perspective on things. 

O'Keeffe loved New Mexico and would spend her summer's there while she was living in New York. Eventually she would move to New Mexico and live on Ghost Ranch, which I got to tour through later on in my trip.

As one of the most significant and revolutionary artists, Georgia O’Keeffe rose to prominence for her stylized renditions of New York cityscapes, New Mexico landscapes, and imposing paintings of flowers in bloom.

O’Keeffe was one of the first female artists to achieve worldwide critical acclaim for her constantly evolving modernist style. While she experimented with abstract painting, she is remembered primarily for her magnified depictions of plant life and the outdoors, a theme that preoccupied her for the entirety of her career.

"When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not" - O'Keeffe

"I decided that if I could paint that flower in a huge scale, you could not ignore its beauty."

"I often painted fragments of things because it seemed to make my statement as well as or better than the whole could. 

And I long ago came to the conclusion that even if I could put down accurately the thing that I saw and enjoyed, it would not give the observer the kind of feeling it gave me.

I had to create an equivalent for what I felt about what I was looking at—not copy it."

In 1930 Georgia O’Keeffe witnessed a drought in New Mexico that resulted in the starvation of many animals, whose skeletons littered the landscape. She was fascinated by these bones and shipped a number of them back to New York City. She later wrote, “To me they are as beautiful as anything I know. To me they are strangely more living than the animals walking around… . The bones seem to cut more sharply to the center of something that is keenly alive on the desert even tho’ it is vast and empty and untouchable—and knows no kindness with all its beauty.” The bones provided her with interesting shapes and textures, and she painted them frequently, intrigued as much by their symbolism as by their formal potential.

"I saw the crosses so often -- and often in unexpected places -- like a thin dark veil of the Catholic Church spread over the New Mexico landscape"

For me, painting the crosses was a way of painting the country."

Monty loved this museum.

These two pieces were headed to the museum vault and would have some time to rest and take it easy for the next few years. Being on display in a museum is taxing on paint, so paintings are often rotated out so they can spend time in temperature and humidity controlled vaults to help keep them looking their best.

There is a really awesome short video in one of the gallery rooms that gives a brief overview of O'Keeffe's life. There are clips of her during interviews giving sassy answers, it was awesome to see her face and hear her voice in a museum that is filled with her art. She was one strong, fascinating lady.

The Georgia O'keeffe museum is absolutely beautiful, it's small and intimate which makes it easy to navigate and gives you just enough to really appreciate her life and her work without ever making you feeling overwhelmed or drained. I loved our time here and highly recommend it to anyone visiting Santa Fe!

After the museum, we strolled through the streets on our way to the main square of the Historic District. Santa Fe is known for it's art galleries and jewelry stores, it reminds me a lot of Park City here in Utah. It's the perfect place to go window shopping.

We walked passed the New Mexico Museum of Art, we didn't tour through it, but I was intrigued by the brass tiles out front that highlight well known artists, of all mediums, that were from New Mexico.

We found Griffin Street which we thought was cool for our Griffin family members, especially since Mike grew up in New Mexico!

Our first stop was the Palace of the Governors where Native American craftspeople sell their handmade souvenirs and jewelry.

V picked out a beautiful silver and turquoise bracelet to remember her first visit to Santa Fe.

There are venders set up around the Santa Fe Plaza which adds to its lively and fun atmosphere

By now it was time for lunch! Beth had researched and found several blogs and trip advisors recommended getting Roque's famous carnitas from their food cart that is always stationed on a specific corner of the plaza.

I loved the list of events they are happy to cater ....

Santa Fe's famous cart is only open until around 2 or 3 in the afternoon which is when they usually run out of carnitas, we made sure to make it over by that time and we got the very last carnita, but they only had one. But they had plenty of tamales left, so we got a few of those as well.

The tamales were filled with cheese and corn and were absolutely delcious 

We found a table in the shade and had a splendid picnic style lunch with a beautiful view of the plaza. Such a happy moment in time.

After lunch, we took the long way back to the car to do some more window shopping and really soak in the vibe of the plaza.

It was so fun to see balloon decorations everywhere in honor of the Balloon Fiesta.

Reece had read about the World Famous Frito Pie you can only get at the Five and Dime, and he was so excited to try one out! I also love sampling any famous food or treats from any town I am visiting, I feel like it is a big part of experiencing and learning about different cultures and cities, so I got one too!

How to make a Frito Pie:

Get a small bag of fritos, cut the top off the bag, spoon in a generous spoonful of hearty chili, top with shredded cheese and Voila! You've got a delicious, satisfying, meal with a crunch that is perfect to eat on the go.

After our time in the Historic District of Santa Fe, we headed to the magical world of Meow Wolf, a place like nothing I had ever experienced before! That will be covered in the next post!