Origami in the Garden and Chocolate in Madrid

May 9, 2025                                                                   Most Recent Posts:
Santa Fe Skies RV Park                                                O’Keeffe’s Abiquiu Home
Santa Fe, New Mexico                                                   Old Town Santa Fe

Origami in the Garden

Origami is a Japanese art of folding a square piece of paper in a way to produce a bird,  a boat, a butterfly, a pony and more.  Metal Artist Kevin Box takes origami to another level, transforming paper into museum quality metal sculpture through processes he has pioneered working with origami artists, foundries, fabrication shops, and his studio staff.

Origami in the Garden is an exhibition created by Santa Fe artists Jennifer and Kevin Box, featuring Box’s own compositions as well as collaborations with world-renowned origami artists.  These metal artworks are displayed in a beautiful outdoor setting.

Upon arriving you are given a map and an umbrella, if you wish, as there is little shade in the garden.  We were lucky since the day was not sweltering.   Notice the Pegasus sculpture on the map.  That’s where we started.

Jody and Tessa give an idea of the size of this metal horse.  Jodee is consulting the map which we did multiple times throughout our visit as it wasn’t as accurate or simple as it appeared.

Right after seeing the origami metal crow, I saw this live one in a tree.  It was amazing.  How do they do this metal sculpture or even the paper folding to create such an incredible likeness.

Such a wonderful environment in which to place the sculptures.

Further up the dry stream bed were the Paper Navigators.

The Paper Navigators
I’d love to see this in a good rain.  Do they have a monsoon season here?

Petrified wood that I assume was brought in as part of nature’s art work but I neglected to ask when we went into the gift shop.

Jodee reading about the Seed and Seed Sower done in 2017.

Kevin Box is the metal artist for both.   Michael LaFosse used the duogami technique of folding a single uncut square of paper with a different color on each side which created the brown squirrel with a pale colored chest.  My photo doesn’t capture the chest unfortunately.

Beth Johnson created the origami acorn using folded paper and computer-aided design techniques to produce the complex curves.  Kevin Box turned them both into metal sculpture.  Amazing.

The Iron Horses.   Wish I’d had Jodee and Tessa stand near these to show their size.   Definitely larger than they look here.

White Buffalo.  He was actually all white but my photo gives a silver cast to his rear which I really like.

Scents of Gratitude

Our last stop was the gift shop where outside we found an example of the unfolded origami sheet (in metal) and the folded creation.   You can judge from the chairs the size of the unfolder origami.

Inside were origami butterflies           

Two visitors were being given lessons.  The light from the door was bothersome.

Dancing Crane and Dancing Crane Unfolded. 

The crown jewel of the exhibition is Master Peace, a 25 foot tall sculpture of 1,000 stainless steel origami peace cranes. 500 of the cranes  are here creating this monument and 500 are scattered around the world as individual collector pieces.  I can’t imagine folding 1000 cranes.

Kevin and Jennifer Box are two amazing young people whose life work together  gives me a lot of hope which I can really use. 

Read their stories here and  the story of their wonderful vision here.

Can’t thank Jodee enough for bringing them into my life.  I doubt I would have seen this had it not been for her.

Madrid, New Mexico

After seeing the origami we headed up the Turquoise Trail to Madrid (pronounced  (Mad-rid not Ma-drid).  It’s a place Jodee loves for its atmosphere and particularly for its chocolates but more on that later.

Madrid is a small former coal mining town that has recreated itself asa  quirky hippyesque (is that a word) town of artists, unique galleries and eclectic shops.   It’s small and walkable and seriously unique.   Population 308.

You just park along the street and walk.

I saw the sign for the library but I didn’t see the door.  Wish I’d checked more closely.  Can’t imagine what a library in this town would have looked like.  But we were bent on lunch and later I got too caught up in the uniqueness of Madrid and forgot.

We had lunch at Refinery 14 where Jodee has gone every one of the five times she’s been here. 

We ate inside since all the noise was outside.  And of course I got no picture of us sitting at the table in the picture or of the delicious food we ate.   Although my journal tells me we had Ahi Tuna Tacos.

From there we wandered around town.

Took in the sights.

Thought about a fixer upper.

And whether Jodee needed some yard art.

We went into one gallery off of this raised western sidewalk fronted shops.

And sat in the back courtyard to soak up the atmosphere.  Pretty sure everything you can see is for sale.  I’m partial to the turquoise door and the mountain goats.

Unique bird bath

Complete with tooo cute bathing bird

Like O’Keeffe, I’d buy this place just for the door.  And what is above it?

I’d say the entire town was “very cool”.

Our last stop was the reason for the visit.  Jodee LOVES  Sugarman’s Little Chocolate Shop.   Do use the link to take a look at Harvey, read his story and see the MANY chocolates he makes.

This is serious chocolate.   As you can see from looking in the door, the shop is TINY and the counter barely inside.   I wasn’t able to get a decent picture of Jodee selecting her goodies.

But here’s a look at what I took home with me. 

The link to the website (above) shows an amazing variety of chocolates and particularly barks.  My barks are Dark raspberry, Milk peanut butter and White with organic cacao nibs.   Jodee got so many I can’t remember them maybe she will comment and tell us (hint hint).  But I did look on the “shop” page and love the names like Dark green chili cashew with Thai lemongrass, lime and Margarita salt.  Or Dark orange French Crepe with Orange Essence. I can’t even imagine these.

I would definitely have had Milk pecans with Vermont Maple Sugar and Sea Salt or White Lavender with Lavender Sugar but neither was available that day.  RATS!

What a fun day.  Thanks Jodee for these great finds.  What an addition to my travels you are.

O’Keeffe’s Abiquiu Home

Wednesday May 7, 2025                                               Most Recent Posts:
Santa Fe Skies RV Park                                                  Old Town Santa Fe
Santa Fe, New Mexico                                                   Georgia O’Keeffe

On Wednesday Jodee drove the 3 of us to the little town of Abiquiu where we checked in at the O’Keeffe Welcome Center for our guided tour of Georgia O’Keeffe’s Abiquiu home.

Inside were photos of the inside of the home and some furnishings for those who came by without a tour reservation.

Among the photos was this one of O’Keeffe in 1958 with her “butterfly chair” a favorite place to sit and enjoy her patio.  When the chair was not in use, she often removed its cover to admire the sculptural quality of the chair frame itself.    The information sign said “In many instances, O’Keeffe considered objects in her home to be more than mere furniture, appreciating them for their craftsmanship and form”.

This photo is of the living room window looking out.  It’s much better than the one I took from the same spot.

Our tour took a small van up the road outside of Abiquiu to her home.

After the death of her husband Arthur Stieglitz in 1945, Georgia O’Keeffe purchased the ruined Spanish Colonial home and, with the help of her friend Maria Chabot, began to restore the 5,000-square-foot residential compound. She owned the property until her death in 1986, and its spaces and vistas inspired many of her paintings, including several depictions of the enclosed adobe patio at the heart of the complex.

Frank was our guide and began his tour outside the wonderful adobe walls of the house.

He told us that the man working on some of the plantings was the grandson of O’Keeffe’s gardener.  And that he would be retiring shortly.

I loved the local cat checking out the dog sign as we moved into the yard

I love the gray haired Tabby and couldn’t resist taking this picture to see if Carrie thought she looked like our wonderful kitty Puddintane (Puddy).  Any one remember the rhyme 
“What’s Your Name?
Puddintane, ask me again and I’ll tell you the same.”

The property had come with legal rights to the town’s communal water and irrigation system which enabled O’Keeffe to grow and preserve her own food and maintain  a high degree of self-sufficiency.

We walked into the edge of the garden which was being prepared for planting.

Notice the ladder.

She was very involved in growing her own food and had a fruit orchard here as well as the vegetable beds.  It’s a whole other topic of research about her.

Another picture of the ladder from above.  Notice the window.

Georgia O’Keeffe was also a sculptor and this is one of hers.

This window is in the wall in the living room with the view out to the tree.  We saw this view the welcome center photograph.   We entered the house through the door just beyond it.

The door led through a hallway into a courtyard surrounded by the walls of the house.

A well is under the wooden top

Frank stands in front of the black door which it is said so captivated O’Keeffe that she bought the house, which was in great disrepair, because of it.  She is quoted as saying “I had to have it”.   Over the years she did multiple paintings of it beginning in 1946 making it a recurring motif in her work.

Here are a couple that I took from the internet.

Black Door with Red

Patio with Black Door

From the patio we went into her huge pantry where I recognized so many things that were in our farmhouse from our days of raised beds, orchards, drying, canning and freezing all of which O’Keeffe also did.

My farm house has windows over the kitchen sink but they are no where near as large and the view is quite different.   What a great room with the windows, the view and the ceiling beams.

I was particularly taken with the window recessed into the adobe wall.

I did a quick search to see if she ever painted this window with which I was really taken but couldn’t find any evidence.

Inside looking out to the sculpture I showed before.

Another recessed space and a corner fire place which was also in several other of the rooms.

Here is the living room view picture that I took.  Her house was so clean and simple.  It felt relaxing just to look at it.  The tree outside the window is wonderful and was the one the cat was perched when I took “her” picture.

We were told that the home was just as she had left it and the furnishings all hers.  The studio was the one room that didn’t look “lived in” to me.

Many of her paintings were done from this window overlooking the Chama valley.  Frank told us that O’Keeffe used the bed as a resting place and that in her later years a companion helper would sleep in the studio.

I was wondering about the sculpture near the fireplace and wish I’d asked Frank if this too was one in a series that included the one I showed earlier.    Guess I’ll have to go back and take the tour again so I can ask.

The small sculpture on the table is also one of hers.  Notice the canvas and metal framed furniture from which the covers can be removed to show the metal shapes.

I LOVED this touch.  It was her phone list.  I wanted to pick it up and dial Ansel Adams.

Her closets were open as we passed into her bedroom.   Black and white was her usual attire.  I’d sure love to have those hiking boots.

The bedroom windows were stunning.   The room very spartan as was the rest of her home.

The view from outside the bedroom.

The bedroom windows from the outside.

And with that we were back outside and at the end of the tour which seemed to have flown by.

The van took us back to the Welcome Center. We went next door to the Abiquiu Inn for lunch and a rehash of our tour.

I loved this horned toad sculpture.  I think they are actually horned “lizards” but they are very different from any toad or lizard in my part of the country.

Inside the restaurant was not too busy although a small group came in after I took this shot.

I didn’t have any pictures from there of the two of us that were decent enough to publish but I did get one of the food which was very good and reasonably priced.

From there we went around the corner into the heart of the town of Abiquiu  itself.

These two homes were just off the central plaza with roads beside them going in several directions back to other homes further away I assumed.  We weren’t nosey enough to drive down them.

We wondered how much worse this “fixer upper , also right off the central plaza, looked in comparison with what was called a ruins when O’Keeffe bought her home in 1945.

The center plaza of Abiquiu was of course centered around the church but the library, which sadly was closed, was what caught my eye first.

St Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church also was not open.

I highly recommend the Abiquiu house tour and lunch at the Inn.  It hasn’t moved from  my bucket list since I have every intention of returning and doing it again.

I do visit O’Keeffe’s home in Ghost Ranch but that’s several posts away as I did it while staying in Taos and I haven’t yet finished with Santa Fe. 
This is a great adventure!  So glad to have such terrific traveling companions!