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Somewhere between a Santa Fe museum and a small town in Colorado, a seemingly inconsequential detail became a destination.
This story began with me in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and ends in the small town of Ward, Colorado. The connection? A painting of a church bell and a curiosity I had to follow. A church bell might seem like an unlikely reason to plan a trip, but I knew I had to follow my curiosity.
During one of my many visits to Santa Fe, I wandered into the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum expecting to spend most of my time with some of her most famous pieces, like Black Iris and Bella Donna. Instead, it was the portrait of a church bell that caught my eye. The painting, simply titled Church Bell, captures a church bell tower with small homes in the distance and wooded mountain peaks layered in the background. To my surprise, when I read the title, I saw it was of a church in Ward, Colorado.
I knew of O’Keeffe’s connection to New Mexico, but I hadn’t known that this small Colorado mountain town had caught her attention, too. Instantly, I knew I had to see for myself the church bell that had captivated the American artist so many years ago. It took several years before I finally made the journey to Ward, but when I did, it revealed so much more to me.
Years after seeing the painting, I finally made the trek to Ward, carrying the memory of a painting I had first encountered hundreds of miles away.
Most people know Georgia O’Keeffe for her up-close-and-personal paintings of flowers and skeletal bones, including paintings like Pelvis With The Distance, as well as colorful Southwest landscapes from her time at Ghost Ranch, just outside Santa Fe, New Mexico. In the late 1920s, O’Keeffe began spending time in the Southwest, and after her husband died in 1946, she made her visits out West permanent and moved to Abiquiu, New Mexico. But long before she visited New Mexico, she took a trip to Ward, Colorado, with her sister Claudia in 1917.
She loved the old mining town so much that she planned to move there. During her visit, she painted and sketched numerous works of the mountainous scenery of the area, but only a few sketches and paintings survived after all these years, including her 17×14″ painting of the church bell in Ward, Colorado. After she passed, the painting was found in her collection and now hangs in the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, where I first saw it.
O’Keeffe documented her trip to Colorado in a 1917 letter to Hazel Schmoll1, her host in Ward; she describes walking from Ward to Estes Park, then down to Loveland, where she caught the train to Denver. That trek almost seems impossible now, but not for O’Keeffe.
Back then, her work pushed the boundaries of traditional art, and combined with her eccentric spirit—always dressing in black and white, no makeup, and taking miles-long daily walks —O’Keeffe was an adventurer at heart, not only in her art but in how she lived her life. In fact, she was known for her daily miles-long walks and hikes, where she found inspiration for her art and photography.
From Denver, her train crossed through New Mexico2, and she made her first-ever visit to Santa Fe before heading back to Canyon, Texas, where she was teaching at the time at Texas Normal College. I’d like to think that this off-road sojourn was the catalyst for her love affair with the Southwest landscapes she would go on to paint and later call home for the last half of her life. Without that visit, who knows where her art would have taken her—a connection that reveals how a journey can keep unfolding long after we return.
I’ve long felt a connection to O’Keeffe’s way of seeing the world. As a photographer and artist, I understand how she saw her surroundings through color, shapes, and forms. Her message as an artist has always spoken to me, and her painting of Ward felt familiar in that way. Like me, O’Keeffe was a curious traveler who liked to wander off the well-beaten path. She found reprieve amongst the beauty of the Rocky Mountains and the wide-open colorful landscape of the Southwest. Her love for the natural world and willingness to explore beyond the city limits revealed more of her creative self and continued to inspire her as an artist.
The trip began with O’Keeffe’s curiosity and continued with my own. Somewhere between a Santa Fe museum and a small town in Colorado, a seemingly inconsequential detail became a destination.
Can you visit the church in Georgia O’Keeffe’s Church Bell Painting?
Yes, you can visit the church, but ask first if you can go inside. Ward, Colorado, is a small community of fewer than 150 people, and they are protective of its residents and its land. It’s an easy walk up to see the church and photograph its exterior. At 9,500 feet, the town sits amid aspen groves and mountain peaks along the Peak to Peak Scenic Byway, just northwest of Boulder. Known as the Ward Community Church, it sits atop a grassy hillside, with its steep roof and bell tower overlooking town. A dirt road, drivable or walkable, as O’Keeffe no doubt did, leads to the church’s doorstep. A tiny aspen grove cradles the church’s four walls that were built in 1896, making it one of the town’s oldest unaltered buildings.
A connection that reveals how a journey can keep unfolding long after we return.
