Weekends with O'Keeffe

Weekends with O'Keeffe by Merrill, C. S.. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780826349286.

In 1973 Georgia OKeeffe employed C. S. Merrill to catalog her library for her estate. Merrill, a poet who was a graduate student at the University of New Mexico, was twenty-six years old and OKeeffe was eighty-five, almost blind, but still painting. Over seven years, Merrill was called upon for secretarial assistance, cooking, and personal care for the artist. Merrills journals reveal details of the daily life of a genius. The author describes how OKeeffe stretched the canvas for her twenty-six-foot cloud painting and reports on OKeeffes favorite classical music and preferred performers. Merrill provided descriptions of nature when she and the artist went for walks; she read to OKeeffe from her favorite books and helped keep her space in meticulous order. Throughout the book there are sketches of OKeeffes studio and an account of once assisting OKeeffe at the easel. Jockeying for position among the helpers OKeeffe relied upon was part of daily life at Abiquiu, where territorial chows guarded the property. Visitors came from far and wide, among them Eliot Porter and even Allen Ginsberg accompanied by Peter Orlovsky. All this is revealed in Merrills straightforward and deeply respectful notes. Reading her book is like spending a weekend with OKeeffe in the incomparable light and clear air of Northern New Mexico mountains and desert.