Page 98 - WINE DINE AND TRAVEL FALL 2021 DISCOVERING SANTA FE

Suffering from macular degeneration and fail- was too frail to go to Ghost Ranch. She moved to
ing vision, O’Keeffe painted her last unassisted Santa Fe where she died on March 6, 1986, just
oil painting there in 1972. However, O’Keeffe’s one year shy of 100. They scattered her ashes at
will to create did not diminish with her eyesight. the flat-topped mountain Cerro Pedernal, the
In 1977, at age ninety, she observed, “I can see subject of several of her paintings. She once said:
what I want to paint. The thing that makes you “It’s my private mountain. It belongs to me. God
want to create is still there.” told me if I painted it enough, I could have it.” She
During the last few years of her life, O’Keeffe now belongs to this magic land she loved so much.

98 WINE DINE & TRAVEL MAGAZINE FALL 2021