Exhibit highlights Georgia O'Keeffe's well of inspiration through her outdoor adventures

Susan Montoya Bryan, The Associated Press

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe is opening a yearlong exhibition Friday highlighting the artist's outdoor adventures and the landscape paintings they inspired.

The show includes Georgia O'Keeffe's clothing, camping gear, letters and snapshots taken by her friends. Worn-out jeans and scuffed sneakers tell part of the story. Also on display are lanterns, cooking equipment and a tent O'Keeffe used with a friend in a 1944 trip. Her handwritten letters describe the dust, biting gnats, unpredictable rainstorms and repeated struggles to get to some of New Mexico's loneliest spots.

The museum has turned one gallery into a slice of northwestern New Mexico's badlands with a panoramic photograph of the area that O'Keeffe called the Black Place, where clay hills are colored various shades of black and grey.