Photo Credit: JULIEN MCROBERTS
In fact, visitors can see Lopez’s grandfather’s name, Estiven Suazo, etched, apparently with his boss’s blessing, into one of the bricks alongside the garden he tended. “Miss O’Keeffe was a very astute businesswoman, but also very generous in the community, and she was aware of what was going on,” Lopez says. “She seemed pretty astute as to how people were: their character, their natures.” Originally intending to be an accountant, and therefore thinking her job with O’Keeffe would be only temporary, Lopez did whatever was asked of her. “It was a different experience for me,” says Lopez, who eventually managed both Abiquiú and Ghost Ranch. “I never thought I’d be here this long or make a career out of working here. This was totally unexpected.” As different as they were from each other—Lopez coming from a Catholic hispanic home, O’Keeffe an independent, almost maverick midwesterner— they found they were simpatico. “We had a connection, we trusted each other,” says Lopez, who knew only a little about O’Keeffe or her art before she was hired. “I learned about art and the way she wanted her artwork represented. She was meticulous in how she wanted things done.” Over time, Lopez’s world and its possibilities expanded. “Here was this very independent, multifaceted woman who ended up being a great inspiration to me and to many people,” observes Lopez from her airy, sunlight-infused office, located in Claudia’s Room, where O’Keeffe’s younger sister, a California schoolteacher, would stay during her summer visits. “It sort of opened my eyes, to see that there was something else out there. I think that’s why people come here—and it’s multinational in terms of the visitors we get. They’re inspired by the lifestyle Miss O’Keeffe led, by her art, her aesthetic. Not by meeting her, but through her art, her history.”
Agapita Judy Lopez, the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum’s Director of Historic Properties and Rights and Reproduction Manager
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