TEXAS PANHANDLE: PALO DURO CANYON PART II, THE STATE PARK

March 21, 2021

I took a picture of this quote when we visited the Panhandle Plains Historical Museum because I am a Georgia O'Keeffe fan. 

When I got home and ran across it in my photos, I Googled "Georgia O'Keeffe Palo Duro Canyon" and found out that the artist I had always associated with New Mexico and New York actually taught art in the public schools in  Amarillo, Texas, from 1912 to 1914. In 1916 she became the chair of the art department of West Texas State Normal College (now West Texas A&M University) in Canyon, Texas, where the Panhandle Museum (and this quote) is located. It was during the next year and a half in Texas that her art evolved towards abstraction, particularly her landscapes.

She painted 51 watercolors during this time, many of them abstract expressionist landscapes of Palo Duro Canyon, a place she often visited for inspiration. She called the canyon "a slit in nothingness," but another time she wrote that "the plains' . . . feeling of bigness just carries me away." And of a hike in the canyon she said, "I was very small and very puny and helpless, and all around was so big and impossible."

Canyon with Crows (1917) from here

L: Alfred Stieglitz's photo of Georgia O'Keeffe in front of her charcoal drawing of Palo Duro Canyon
R: No 15 Special (1916-1917), painting of the canyon

Here are two versions of O'Keeffe's Light Coming on the Plains (1917), painted during her time in Canyon.

And here is my series Light Coming to Palo Duro from our visit in March 2021:

Yes, Georgia, Palo Duro Canyon is "a burning, seething cauldron, filled with dramatic light and color." No wonder you found your muse here.

After soaking up all the beauty we could from the viewpoint (and also because it was very cold), we got back in the car and spent another hour or so driving the loop through the state park. Not a lot of words are needed; the pictures speak for themselves.

Did you see the three does in the photo above?

By the way, I discovered these in Canyon. They were a good breakfast/made a nice treat to munch on while I watched the panorama unfold through the car window.