“Photography”

“Photography” by Marion Patterson

Now and again there comes a time when you are introduced to someone, and the more you talk with that person, you begin to understand a bit of their creative history. As one person here on the coast said, “That’s how meeting Marion Patterson struck me.” Happily for all of us, meeting Marion Patterson will be as simple as stopping in at the Dolphin Gallery on Friday, June 2 for an opening reception from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. It’s a moment to celebrate her exhibit, titled simply, “Photography”.

Patterson’s images are marvelous, and they often seem instantly familiar, particularly for those of us who live or have traveled through the West. Over the years she has focused on the natural subjects found throughout central and northern California. As Charis Wilson Weston reminds us, Patterson’s photography has captured many essential pieces of California, including “rocks, waterfalls, creeks, trees, seashells, sand, driftwood, and kelp washed ashore by the tides—as well as images from the Southwest and the deserts of California. The book [Grains of Sand] provides a quiet meditation on the beauty of our natural environment in a manner that reflects the author’s lifelong ties to the West Coast school of photography, deeply influenced by Edward Weston and Ansel Adams.”

A native San Franciscan, a graduate of Stanford University and holding a masters degree from California State University, San Francisco, Marion Patterson has been seriously involved in photography since 1956, when she began studies at the San Francisco Art Institute with such luminaries as Dorothea Lange and Minor White. That list of influencers she’s met over the years also includes Virginia and Ansel Adams, for whom she worked (in Yosemite) from 1958 to 1961. From 1961 to 1964 she was assistant to the photography editor of Sunset Magazine. Over the subsequent years Patterson’s images have been exhibited at the S. F. Museum of Modern Art, the Oakland Museum in 1966 and numerous other museums and galleries. 

Her photographs have been widely published and exhibited throughout North America, Mexico, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands. Her fine art images and travel range from Antarctica, the American Southwest, North and South America, China, Tibet, among others. Patterson is particularly known for her close-up photographs of what she calls the Intimate Landscape. She now resides in the northern California coastal town of Gualala where she continues to photograph and paint. More of her work is found in her book, “Grains of Sand”. Patterson’s website is: marionpattersonphotographer.com.