The long tradition of landscape painting is one of conceptual positions and ideas revealed through images recalling the world. Still-life, as an intimate form of landscape, explores the same concerns. Color, the major actor in my painting, transforms my geometric plan. Geometric structure determines the field, and color occupies it, navigating through the structure, making space, asserting the presence of things waiting on our recognition. Finding those things is an act of memory for me. We see that color, within a structure, does what the poet Charles Tomlinson claims—

brings the mind halfway to its defeat, Among these overlappings, half-lights, depths, The currents of the air, these hiddenesses.

(Mary Vernon)

Valley House Gallery is pleased to present our ninth solo exhibition of paintings by Mary Vernon. Born in Southern New Mexico, Vernon was educated at the University of California, Berkeley, and The University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. Vernon served as Professor of Art at Southern Methodist University for 50 years, beginning in 1967. Now retired from teaching, she works full-time in the studio. Her third booklet, Stories, has been published in conjunction with this exhibition.