BY KAREN BOSSICK

Julie Green inherited her grandmother’s Noritake dinner service. But she had no use for it—it just didn’t fit her idea of what she should put on the dining room table.

Then Green got the idea to paint stories from her life onto the dinner service. She added her own swath of colors.

And her table setting soon became a conversational piece.

Hear the story from this artist herself Thursday night when the Sun Valley Center for the Arts presents a free evening tour of its current visual arts exhibition, “At the Table: Kitchen as Home.” The event starts at 5:30 p.m. at The Center at Fifth and Washington streets in Ketchum.

Visitors can help themselves to a glass of wine, take a guided tour of the exhibition with The Center’s curators and hear Green’s talk about her installation, which she has titled “An Embarrassment of Dishes.”

Green will also talk about the role of food in her practice and about her experience living in The Center’s Ezra Pound house in Hailey where she made work in response to the history of the house and its one-time resident Roberta McKercher, a longtime newspaper reporter.

Green is best known for her ongoing project, “The Last Supper,” which has been featured on the PBS NewsHour and in The New York Times, said Courtney Gilbert, curator of Visual Arts at The Center.

The installation features paintings of final meals of death row inmates. One Idaho inmate chose the prison’s “daily special” of hot dogs, sauerkraut, baked beans, veggie sticks and Jell-O with fruit. The prison chef added strawberry ice cream as a special treat.

Another did it up in style with prime rib, lobster, two pints of black walnut ice cream, rolls, a half-gallon milk and a two-liter bottle of Coca Cola. Clearly, he had no reason to watch his calories.

The Center’s visual arts exhibition features the world of six contemporary artists, including Green, whose work examines the role of the kitchen, its contents and the act of preparing and enjoying food in shaping our memories.

It will be on view through March 1. Admission is free.