Georgia O'Keeffe's Daily Routine

Georgia O'Keeffe was the modernist painter of giant flowers, bones and the New Mexico desert. From 1949 she lived in New Mexico full time, at Abiquiu and Ghost Ranch. She got up with the dawn and ate her last meal of the day at 4:30 PM.

Mason Currey's Daily Rituals describes her making a fire and maybe some tea, then sitting in bed to watch the sun come up. Most days she took a half-hour walk, watching for rattlesnakes, before breakfast at 7:00 AM. On painting days she worked in her studio for the rest of the day, breaking at noon for lunch; on other days she gardened, did housework, answered letters and received visitors. She ate a light supper at 4:30 PM to leave time for an evening drive through the countryside.

It's for anyone with a creative practice who wants the morning to start slowly and the working day to end early. Painting, she said, was what you do all the other things for. Her bedtime, the length of each block and the split into five painting days and two house days are our estimates.