After 10 years in advertising and 30+ years in information technology, and a poet for 50 years, in early 2022 Vernon began to explore a new avenue of creativity–painting landscapes in watercolor and ink. Intrigued by the dynamic nature of water-based media, he fell in love with their active participation in the creative process, allowing their movement and flow to suggest, even dictate, a painting’s final form and subject matter.

His process, whether painting or writing poetry, is the same: the poems are experiments with combinations of collected words and turns of phrase, looking to see what they might produce on their own. The trick is to get out of the way and allow the poem to suggest what it wants to say. Similarly, the paintings are most often improvisational explorations and associative leaps. Instead of the sounds of words and the silences between them, it’s the light and shadow of pigment revealing landscapes that have called themselves into being.

Vernon’s artwork has hung in the Mobile Museum of Art’s Government Plaza gallery, several Mobile Arts Council Member Shows, a solo exhibition at the Arts Council in 2024, as well as member exhibitions for both the Mobile Art Association and the Watercolor & Graphic Arts Society of Mobile. A number of them are available at Sophiella Gallery, 111 Dauphin St., Mobile, AL 36602.

A graduate of the LSU Creative Writing Program, his poems have appeared in numerous magazines, journals, and anthologies. His poetry collection, “The Sound of Falling”, was published in 2013 by Negative Capability Press.