Georgia O’Keeffe lured us to New Mexico. Her paintings demanded it. And yet, we weren’t quite prepared for the breadth of magic we would discover there.

Via O’Keeffe’s live-in studio and the famous Ghost Ranch, it felt surreal to see the vistas that O’Keeffe immortalised in her canvases so full of life.

We swam in Lake Abiqui before taking the scenic High Road to the town of Taos through the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, where Native Americans and the first Spanish settlers once lived. On the outskirts of Taos we visited Taos Pueblo; a multi-storied adobe complex steeped in over 1000 years of history.

Through Carrizozo, a town in Lincoln County with a population of 996 and the feel of an abandoned film park, we travelled on to The White Sands Monument; a barren, beautiful (and often deadly) place quite unlike anywhere else we have ever been. The world's largest gypsum dunefield; 275 square miles of sprawling, white desert sand made famous by the first atomic experiments on US soil and countless moments in cinema…

Most recently in Twin Peaks ‘The Return’ as the birthplace of manmade evil (and Bob). Having watching the iconic White Sands sunset we battled through a wild and sweeping thunderstorm en route to El Paso. When we arrived we felt like we had crossed a desert to get there; wind and sand swept.

The next day we set off en route to Marfa, Texas asking ourselves why artists make homes in certain places? What they choose to bring and in turn, what they choose to leave behind. What they look for and what their locale gives back to them.

We visited Georgia O’Keeffe’s home on Palvadera Drive in Abiquiu, northwest of Santa Fe up Route 84. As a true champion of modernism and often coined the ‘mother of American Modernism’ O’Keeffe spent the final chapter of her life in Abiquiu having visited the region to paint sporadically since the late-1920’s.

A true style icon, O’Keeffe altered her East Coast style to toe the line with the common cowgirl staples of New Mexico, minus “the extremes of western chic”, a style approach that saw her described as a “regional modernist” by Wanda M. Corn. Her Abiquiu home is preserved exactly as she left it; a sanctuary of peace, meditation and prolific indoor and outdoor creativity.

“The bones seem to cut 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.”

With a level of expertise, utilising sophisticated irrigation techniques, O’Keeffe Cultivated fresh produce, flowers, vegetables and fruit trees uncommon to such arid desert landscapes. The gardens still flourish. This made for a level of self-sufficiency that allowed O’Keeffe to live with her work, among her favourite terrain.

This is precisely where our fasciation with O’Keeffe began. Her ability to produce work that truly inhabits the spirit of her subjects is largely a result of her finding sustainable ways for her surroundings to totally engulfed her. A way of life that provoked extreme levels of creation and immense wellbeing. This is why O’Keeffe’s former home is so celebrated; it was utterly integral to the finest chapter of her illustrious career, and in visiting you find answers to questions in every view out of every window.