Zibby Wilder | Consultant | Writer

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Ghost Ranch

Apr 23, 2019
5 min

Ghost Ranch

It's a quiet, astonishing, ancient, and wild place. Still. As in, nothing really moves here other than the sky and shadows. Also still in the way that, despite its many attractions to the outside world, it remains almost frozen in place. From this earth come the bones of dinosaurs. From its cliffs, artistic inspiration. It's easy to see why Georgia O'Keeffe was so attracted to this wild land. Her 1940 purchase of Rancho de los Burros was purposeful, but naive. For in this par

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Plaza Blanca: Georgia O'Keeffe's White Place

Dec 1, 2018
7 min

Plaza Blanca: Georgia O'Keeffe's White Place

Photo by Danielle Shull I have been traveling like a fat little bee lately, touching down to find my creative spirit pollinated by the sweet beauty of Portugal, Spain, Washington State's San Juan Islands, Zihuatanejo and Mexico City. But back home in New Mexico, I am constantly confronted by the beauty in my "backyard." From the glimmering Aspen-topped Sangre de Christo mountains to the glowing red rock of Ghost Ranch, there are places that speak to me; places with "aina", as

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Baggage is the Real Ball and Chain

Feb 14, 2018
3 min

Baggage is the Real Ball and Chain

On this day of one of the world's most ridiculously successful retail sales ploys, let me speak to you of love. And baggage. As I chop my way through the National park of text I have amassed over the last two years, I slowly hammer the sticks of story back together into tales and timelines that make sense of someone else's history. In doing so, patterns are revealed. And so is the extent of their repetition. Maria's life pattern involved the ball and chain of baggage. So. Muc

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Ghosted

Oct 1, 2017
4 min

Ghosted

Maria Chabot and Dorothy Stewart, 1933. Courtesy of the Maria Chabot Archive, Georgia O'Keeffe Museum Research Center I've always been a fan of ghost stories. I mean, who isn't? In college, my favorite class was called "Stalking the Wild Mind: The Psychology and Folklore of Extra-Sensory Perception and Psychic Phenomena". In it we doused for water, tipped tables, practiced lucid dreaming and hunted ghosts. I would have taken that class for every required elective if I could h

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The Bleak Place

Jul 27, 2017
3 min

The Bleak Place

Georgia O'Keeffe, Black Place II, Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art One of the greatest things about moving to a new place is exploring it. In New Mexico, the possibilities seem endless. In just four months, I've been all over the state -- and much of the Southwest -- from Las Cruces to Taos, Bisbee to Flagstaff. On the way to and from all of these places, I see dozens of spots and think, "I need to camp there." The place at which I would most love to experience the stunnin

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Abiquiu

May 24, 2017
3 min

Abiquiu

You know those experiences that are so surreal, you're not quite sure if they really happened or not? This was one of those. I finally went to the Abiquiu house. I can understand now why thousands of people tour it every year. There's just something about this place. It's like the sky above it is different. And the land around it is different. And the energy in it is different. Everything about it is different than other houses. But I can't say exactly what, or why. The Georg

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Home.

May 12, 2017
2 min

Home.

This morning I took my first steps into the house Maria built for Georgia. Trying to tidy my unwashed hair, I untangled a small chaff of wheat. A dry reminder of my mowing activities of the previous few days. As I let it go with the wind, I was struck by the connection between the house I was standing in front of and the one I left just yesterday -- a little farmhouse cottage in Walla Walla. For Maria, the home and studio atop the hill in Abiquiu was a labor of love for some

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The Women Who Rode Away

Apr 29, 2017
2 min

The Women Who Rode Away

Maria Chabot, Georgia O'Keeffe Hitching a Ride to Abiquiu, Ghost Ranch, 1944, © Georgia O'Keeffe Museum It is one of the most iconic pictures of Georgia O'Keeffe. A rare, unguarded smile suspended in time. When Maria took this photo, she was probably thinking more of the jealousy she felt for Maurice, on whose motorcycle Georgia is perched, than the possibility that she had captured a moment which would become famous. This photo graces the entry of the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum

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Love and Hate at Los Luceros

Apr 16, 2017
4 min

Love and Hate at Los Luceros

I think a lot of farmers have love/hate relationships with farming. For the most part, it's nothing but hard work and frequently, the cruel hand of Mother Nature doesn't give a rat's ass about your hard work. A single dose of rain, wind, cold, or frost can ruin everything. And often does. But, oh, the beauty of it all when it does work out. Maria Chabot understood this as well thanks to Los Luceros. Los Luceros is a ranch near Alcalde, New Mexico, about 40 minutes north of Sa

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