To stir an emotion in the viewer, Mary chooses settings that are remote and enigmatic with little evidence of humanity and at times of day (twilight or dawn) when shadows are longest and color the richest. Light is her most important ally. She uses it to create places that are withdrawn and almost unknowable. When the origin of the light is screened from view it can make the whole place secret, hidden and sheltered. When things cannot be clearly seen they can often be best felt. She beckons the viewer to come closer to explore in hopes of getting answers and explanations or as George Inness, the standard bearer for many landscape painters, would put it, “alluring the mind to regions unknown.”