Aloof and private, O'Keeffe spent little time with other teachers outside the classroom. Her social life, such as it was, centered at the hotel, something of a rooming house run by a woman. she took her meals in the popular hotel dinning room where she enjoyed watching hungry cowboys from off the plains down two or three meals at one sitting. in the building's back rooms she played poker and dominoes with other hotel guests. But she spent much of her free time and many of her weekends taking long walks on the West Texas plains. O'Keeffe loved the region. The flatness, the emptiness, the lightening-filled thunderstorms, and the wind of the High Plains thrilled her. She enjoyed the sense of loneliness that came with her long walks. She rode to Palo Duro Canyon, some twenty miles southeast of Amarillo, and there was impressed with the deep gorge's immensity and its alternating colors of various reds, pinks, and tans. The canyon's colors and the plains vastness provided inspiration for her art and perhaps for her teaching. Excerpted from Georgia O'Keeffe in Texas: A Guide by Paul H. Carlson, John T. Becker All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
