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Drilling encroaches on lands that inspired O’Keeffe, prompting calls to protect its beauty
Georgia O’Keeffe sits at the foot of where she painted Black Place II. O’Keeffe was introduced to the Black Place in the 1930s and made many arduous 100mile road trips there from her home in Abiquiú.
Black Place in peril
Russell Means’ wife alleges malpractice Widow says Christus misdiagnosis led to husband’s death. PAGE C-1
Rebels turn on one another Battle reportedly breaks out between Sunni militant groups, according to witnesses. PAGE A-3
PHOTO BY MARIA CHABOT
A monument at Frank S. Ortiz Park marks where a Japanese internment camp was located in Santa Fe during World War II. CLYDE MUELLER/THE NEW MEXICAN
Grant to help preserve history of internment camps in N.M. By Robert Nott The New Mexican
LUIS SÁNCHEZ SATURNO/THE NEW MEXICAN
By Anne Constable
While at the Black Place, O’Keeffe made dozens of drawings, pastels and some of her most well-known oil paintings, including Black Place II, right, which was inspired by the formation above and is housed at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
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ON OUR WEBSITE To view a video of Black Place, visit www.santa fenewmexican.com. COURTESY THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART
Although the Black Place itself is still untouched, dozens of tanks for water, oil and fracking chemicals lie 500 yards from the site. A little farther down the road is a gas plant. LUIS SÁNCHEZ SATURNO/THE NEW MEXICAN
ixty million years ago, New Mexico’s San Juan Basin east of Nageezi was a tropical forest with magnolias and fig trees. The rivers were full of fish, and mammals roamed the dry lands. Ash spewing out of nearby volcanoes spread over the land, laying down a layer of slippery black clay. When the Rocky Mountains began rising, the uplift set off erosion that washed away the layers of sand and sediment built up over millions of years, eventually creating the distinctive, softly rounded gray formations on either side of N.M. 550 west of the Continental Divide that American artist Georgia O’Keeffe called the “Black Place” and compared to a “mile of elephants.” The oxidation of the iron and manganese in the ash gives the hills their gray-black color. The white bands are remains of ancient riverbeds. O’Keeffe was introduced to the dramatic landscape in the 1930s and made many arduous 100-mile road trips there from her home in Abiquiú. She set up camp, sometimes with her friend and assistant, Maria Chabot, and with photographer Eliot Porter. By then, the area was arid windy, inhospitable. There was little vegetation below the mesa top. The surface of the gray hills was cracked and lumpy, a texture known as “popcorn.” When the sun beat down too hard, she would crawl under her car. But here O’Keeffe did dozens of drawings, pastels and some of her most well-known oil paintings, including Black Place II, which is in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. She made her last visit to the Black Place when she was nearly 90 years old and her eyesight was failing. Today, the landscape that inspired O’Keeffe is dramatically changed. And some say threatened. Located on federal land a mile or so from the turnoff to
The Washington Post
More than 400 large U.S. military drones have crashed in major accidents around the world since 2001, a record of calamity that exposes the potential dangers of throwing open American skies to drone traffic,
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according to a yearlong Washington Post investigation. Since the outbreak of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, military drones have malfunctioned in myriad ways, plummeting from the sky because of mechanical breakdowns, human error, bad weather and other reasons, according to more than 50,000
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pages of accident investigation reports and other records obtained by The Post under the Freedom of Information Act. Commercial drone flights are set to become a widespread reality in the United States, starting next year, under a 2012 law passed by Congress. Drone flights by law enforcement agen-
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‘Follies: The Concert Version’ Santa Fe REP presents Stephen Sondheim’s musical, 4 p.m. Warehouse 21, $25, discounts available, 629-6517, sfrep.org.
Please see BLACK PLACE, Page A-4
Report reveals scores of military drone crashes By Craig Whitlock
Even before Japan launched an air attack on American military forces stationed at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, the U.S. government was prepared to round up and imprison Japanese nationals as a precautionary national security move. Among them was the Rev. Tamasaku Watanabe, who was arrested in Hawaii the same day as the attack. After being placed in a series of internment camps in Hawaii, California and Texas, by 1943 he ended up in a large internment camp in Santa Fe — one of four such camps in the state of New Mexico during World War II. In the beginning, life there was fraught with tension and unrest. Santa Fe citizens were up in arms over news about the Japanese invasion of the Philippines, the Bataan Death March and its aftermath, which took the lives of more than 800 New Mexican soldiers. “There was a great deal of anger vented at the Japanese in the camp who had nothing to do with what was going on in the Pacific,” said Watanabe’s granddaughter, Gail Okawa. For Santa Feans today, the only sign of the camp, which overlooked what is now Frank S. Ortiz Park in the Casa Solana neighborhood, is a stone monument erected in 2002. But thanks to a federal grant, several state historians plan a website and educational publication to draw attention to this dark chapter of New Mexico history. This month, the National Park Service announced
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cies and the military, which already occur on a limited basis, are projected to surge. The documents obtained by The Post detail scores of previously unreported crashes involving remotely controlled aircraft, challenging the federal govern-
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Obituaries Joe E. Durr Sr., 72, June 17 Peggy Martin Gallegos, Pecos, June 5 Robert Lynch, 79, Santa Fe, June 18 Andrew Nowak, June 8 Helenn (Johnson) Rumpel, Santa Fe, June 17 Madeline Marie Tapia, 80, Rio Rancho, June 18 PAGE C-2
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Today Mostly sunny. High 90, low 56. PAGE C-6
Six sections, 76 pages 165th year, No. 173 Publication No. 596-440