For more than twenty years, Craig Varjabedian has explored and photographed the red cliffs and sweeping plains of the fabled 21,000-acre Ghost Ranch in northern New Mexico. In Ghost Ranch and the Faraway Nearby, he shares more than one hundred new black-and-white photographs capturing its evanescent light. These images reach beyond familiar ideas associated with the Ranch—such as its renown as a site of personal renewal and transformation, and as the longtime home of twentieth-century painter Georgia O'Keeffe—into Varjabedian's singular vision of his subject and its ties to ideas of identity, place, and perception.
To further illuminate the experience of Ghost Ranch, Varjabedian gathered essays to accompany his photographs, including an "appreciation" of Ghost Ranch written by Georgia O'Keeffe. These include an evocative introduction by photographer Jay Packer, an essay by writer Marin Sardy examining the place's natural features and social history, and topical essays by theological studies professor Belden C. Lane, arts writer Douglas A. Fairfield, and former Ghost Ranch executive director Rob Craig. Also included are forewords by Cathy L. Wright, Director of the Albuquerque Museum of Art & History, and DebraHepler, Executive Director of Ghost Ranch.
“With a vintage lens and an eye on regional America, Varjabedian captures both the spirit of place and the sense of enduring culture in the Southwest. His imagery comments upon landscape, culture, and how the two influence and imprint each other. Sometimes tinged with religiosity, sometimes humorous, his photographs have an intense clarity that befits his subject: New Mexico.”
—Gerald P. Peters, Gerald Peters Gallery, Santa Fe, Dallas, New York
“The natural outcome of falling in love with someone is writing them a love letter, and I think, in a very real way, Ghost Ranch and the Faraway Nearby is a love letter to a place that truly captured my heart,” Varjabedian says. “If you’ve ever fallen in love with somebody, I think that best describes what happened to me on Ghost Ranch. I went up there probably the first week I had come to New Mexico, and I just somehow knew when I walked on the land at that place that there was something to do there. I was being called in some way.” —Brandon Call
"In seven years exploring and backpacking O'Keeffe country Varjabedian retraces the artist's footsteps, reinterpreting Ghost Ranch's iconic scenery in 110 breathtaking black-and-white photographs." --New Mexico Magazine
Published by the University of New Mexico Press, 2009
Hardcover, 12 x 9, 144 pages
View a selection of the Ghost Ranch images (movie)
Listen to a radio interview with Craig
Varjabedian on Santa
Fe Radio Cafe