Is there a town besides Taos that would inspire Georgia O'Keeffe, when she was painting skulls?

Question

So far anything I've read, O'Keeffe was still only painting flowers when she first visited Taos. Could there be another town that she was in when she first started painting skulls with flowers?

Answer 1

I think she took her inspiration less from the tangible surroundings of the town, I think she took her inspiration from the entire experience of the land and landscape. If you look at her early sketches, the ones that Steglitz mounted in her first NYC show, there is an ideological similarity. I would guess that she found her perfect place when she moved to New Mexico in that it mirrored her aesthetic and her love of a fierce, sunbleached and immaculate wilderness.

The skulls themselves I think cam to symbolize all of this in that they're very distilled and contemporary, but organic and of the earth...they're also fleeting...in that environment, eventually everythign (like the flowers she was painting) would be reduced to sand and dust.

Answer 2

Maybe she was in Mexico City on the day of the Dead and saw all those decorative skulls around.