Weekends with O'Keeffe

By: C. S. Merrill

Narrated by: C. S. Merrill

In 1973, Georgia O'Keeffe 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 26 years old and O'Keeffe was 85 and almost blind but still painting. Over seven years, Merrill was called upon for secretarial assistance, cooking, and personal care for the artist.

Merrill's journals reveal details of the daily life of a genius. The author describes how O'Keeffe stretched the canvas for her 26-foot cloud painting and reports on O'Keeffe's favorite classical music and preferred performers. Merrill provided descriptions of nature when she and the artist went for walks; She read to O'Keeffe from her favorite books and helped keep her space in meticulous order.

Throughout the audiobook, there are descriptions of O'Keeffe's studio and an account of once assisting O'Keeffe at the easel. Visitors came from far and wide, among them Eliot Porter, Laura Gilpin, Nanao Sakaki, and even Allen Ginsberg. All this is revealed in Merrill's straightforward and deeply respectful writing. Listening to her audiobook is like spending a weekend with O'Keeffe in the incomparable light and clear air of northern New Mexico mountains and desert.

©2010 C. S. Merrill (P)2017 C. S. Merrill

excellent meditative reflection on O'keeffe

I appreciated the approach, though I thought things were left out. Including an overall assessment of Georgia O'keeffe and Stieglitz.

Small, interesting details

Of great interest for those who study fashion, design, lifestyle. The young poet recorded in the diary the small details of the painter's life - objects in the house, dinner table, music, books, dresses, snippets of conversations.

A very fresh first hand and different perspective of O’Keeffe’s later life.

A unique and very interesting listen- not the usual researched biography- but delivers a fascinating insight into how O’Keeffe lived from someone who “was in the room.” Details of the meals were deliciously detailed as were other aspects.

Skips in the audio file

I'm enjoying this book but it seems like there are skips in the recording. Without having the text to compare to its hard to be sure what's going on, but about 2/3 of the way through the narrator seems to be interrupted mid-sentence every 10 mins or so