I returned to Cebolla in early June while driving with my family to my son’s college graduation in Washington State. (Yes, we took the long route). I left my family in the car while I photographed the somewhat forlorn church which replaced the adobe structure painted by O’Keeffe. (Note to memory: in my earlier blog post I mistakenly described this later church as made of brick. It is in fact faux adobe.) The church was locked so I was limited to peering through the windows. I was pleased to see that several windows had potted plants on the sill, though none resembled the lavish foliage of the “thing in the window.”

Georgia O’Keeffe, Cebolla Church, 1945, Oil on canvas, Gift of the North Carolina State Art Society (Robert F. Phifer Bequest), in honor of Joseph C. Sloane, 1972 (72.18.1)

But what most intrigues me about this painting–puzzles me to the point of irritation–is that thing in the window. What the heck is it? Look at the rest of the painting, how the artist smoothes and simplifies the forms into broad shapes like some adjective-averse copyeditor. It is all spare and succinct. But just when we are primed to appreciate the image as a deadpan statement–like an apple or skull–the artist goes and puts something strange and arresting in that window. What the heck is it? It obviously was important enough to the artist that she suppressed her editorial instincts and kept it in the picture, the one touch of mystery in an otherwise obvious painting.

Georgia O’Keeffe, Cebolla Church (Detail), 1945

A while back I thought I had a chance to solve the mystery. I was driving my son out west to college and the road took us through New Mexico. We turned north out of Santa Fe along Route 84, past Abiquiu, where O’Keeffe lived, past the Technicolor cliffs of Ghost Ranch, and on a little ways to the town of Cebolla (map), population: 94. We looked around for the Church of Santo Niño. We were directed across the road to a low brick building that resembled O’Keeffe’s church only in its modesty. I learned later that O’Keeffe’s adobe church was torn down soon after she painted it. Sadly, there was nothing strange in the windows of its replacement. I showed a photograph of our painting to some men at the local roadhouse, but no one even remembered the old church. One guy stared at me and asked “you didn’t drive all the way from North Carolina to ask about that thing in the window, did you?”

When I got home I wrote to the curator of the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe. As the author of the definitive catalogue of O’Keeffe’s paintings, she would surely know the identity of that thing. Alas, no. In her e-mail reply, she confessed to being as clueless and curious as me.

I then corresponded with several scientists at New Mexican universities, asking if the thing reminded them of any local plant, a cactus flower perhaps, pressed against the glass. No one offered a suggestion. My letter to the Archdiocese of Santa Fe went unanswered. I’ve now hit the brick wall.

So now I appeal to my readers. Can anyone identify that thing in the window?