century Spanish conquest, Pueblo villages began making the turquoise and silver jewelry that’s still sold in galleries and street markets all over Santa Fe. In recent history, transplants, including the abstract painter Agnes Martin and the aforementioned novelist Willa Cather, have drawn inspiration from the landscape’s light, texture, and color. As New Mexico’s most well-known resident artist Georgia O’Keeffe put it, “There is so much more space between the ground and sky out here[—]it is tremendous.” She was right; the sky does seem to stretch out endlessly above the city. The author Julia Cameron, best known for her cult- popular book, The Artist’s Way , also lives here. In her bestseller about how to establish a creative practice, Cameron prescribes the Artist Date: a block of time set aside to, in her words, “nurture your inner artist.” If this sounds too woo-woo for your taste, think of the Artist Date as creative exploration—and there is, in my opinion, no better place for such an endeavor than Santa Fe. You don’t have to be an artist to design your own retreat in the city. All you need is a weekend and the willingness to absorb the visual, musical, and culinary magic of New Mexico’s capital. OPPOSITE PAGE Hikers find a spot to rest while enjoying the beauty of the Dale Ball Trails. THIS PAGE The New Mexico Museum of Art’s Plaza Building. Opened in 1917, the museum is an “enlarged and modified version” of the structure that architects Isaac Hamilton and William Morris Rapp designed for the 1915 Panama-California Exposition in San Diego.
Start by dipping into Santa Fe’s extensive—and borderline overwhelming—palette of visual art. A meandering walk along Canyon Road (with a stop for sustenance at The Teahouse’s garden patio) will lead you to contemporary, abstract, modern, western, and Native American art galleries. A few minutes down the road in the city center, you’ll find the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts and, a block away, the New Mexico Museum of Art. Both museums neighbor Santa Fe’s central plaza, a historic hub where musicians play in a gazebo and teenagers lounge beneath leafy trees. You will, of course, want to pay your respects to O’Keeffe while you’re there. A short walk from the plaza, the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum is the world’s only museum dedicated to an American female artist. O’Keeffe’s two homes—in Abiquiú and Ghost Ranch— sit some 40-plus miles northwest of Santa Fe and are open to visitors. If you’re up for a drive, they’re well- worth the day trip to see her studio up close, along with the landscape that infused her work for decades. Just off the historic Santa Fe Trail and rising above the city, “Museum Hill” is home to even more art. Visit
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