For as devout as Georgia O’Keeffe was to northern New Mexico, it’s incredible she painted only five pieces of the Ranchos de Taos Church, the oldest church in America. This church, more formally referred to as the San Francisco de Asis Church, was built by the Spanish who traveled into America. It’s a very sacred place and even for people not religious, can have a spiritual quality to it. Visually, the adobe building is very aesthetically pleasing in composition and form. It’s hard to explain with words, but a photograph or physical presence can illuminate this quality instantly. I was fortunate to attend two services, and was pleased to see it still functioning as a church. The service was in part Spanish, and in part English. But back to O’Keeffe, I think it’s incredible she produced only five works from it. Her reasoning was this: She found that the presence of the church is so magnificent and spiritually charged that it could not be reproduced on canvas, and in fact, doing so would be disrespectful. O’Keeffe did not think she was worthy enough to try to capture it. This is ironic because the church has become the most photographed in the United States, and is an important destination for many plein air painters and painters who sell to the Taos tourist market – their idea of sacred is far from O’Keeffe’s.

I produced a few studies of the church and this aquatint etching on a copper plate.