Mary Virginia Carson Pioneer Artist Capturing Rock Art With Watercolors

Artist, architect, and engineer Mary Virginia Carson was the first modern person to capture images of the magnificent murals on the walls of rock shelters in the Lower Pecos Canyonlands. Carson was hired as "Artist' by the Witte Memorial Museum to join an expedition to sketch paintings created by the first people of what we now call Texas. During the summer months of 1931, Carson sat on hot boulders in the blazing sun to render the images before her on watercolor paper with as much fidelity as possible. Thousands of years ago, the People of the Lower Pecos Canyonlands lived in small groups, sheltering on the plains and beneath enormous rock overhangs. Within the rock shelters, they gathered for generations, and in some, they painted vibrant and complex images and murals, some the most nuanced in the world. At age twenty-five, Carson became entranced by the complexity, beauty and allure of the ancient murals, originally painted from more than 5,000 years ago until histo

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