


Last week we took a family camping trip to Taos. Which turned out to be a very Northwest style camping trip with a pleasant and constant drizzle of rain. Usually this would dampen campn' for even the heartiest of campers but when you live in the Southwest, wetness is a gift from the gods!
Of course we visited the Ranchos De Taos Church that Georgia O'Keefe made famous in her work. So famous that it is the most painted church in all the world!
But as for me, I just took photos from the car and then briskly set out for breakfast at Ricks.
Below is all you need to know about the church to sound like a proper pontificating art fag.
(Thank me later).
"The Ranchos de Taos Church is an old adobe Spanish Mission church a few miles south from central Taos, New Mexico, and is one of the most painted buildings in the world. While the front is a beautiful example of Spanish Mission architecture, it is the back of the church that is the subject of so many paintings. Void of doors and windows, the leaning and curved lines of the adobe walls provide a simple form of freeform shape against a big sky background. The image changes dramatically throughout the day and season. O’Keeffe paints the church twice on her first trip in 1929 and again the next year.
Formally called the The Saint Francis of Assisi Church at Rancho de Taos, the church is made of sun dried mud bricks with a layer of mud stucco. While this style of building is durable in sunshine, during the rainy season it suffers significantly. The annual mudding requires an army of volunteers who apply a new outer layer to the entire church. This gives a secondary theme to the painting: a religion that is constantly being built - a church as a living architecture dependent on members to continually maintain the physical, community and spiritual structure."
Swiped from DaveBerryArt.com
Our trip was wonderful, the natural beauty is inspiring, the food was awesome and next time I'll tell Dennis Hopper you said "howdy!".