Member Colors

History of Art: Northern Renaissance, Insular Manuscripts, Goya, Romanesque, Gothic, Reformation/Counter-Reformation, Spanish late 1400s - early 1500s, Netherlandish 1500s & 1600s, Northern European Romantic Painters, English Painters of the 1600s to the present, Irish stone crosses and metalwork 5th to 12th centuries, Early Neolithic Burial Mounds, Dolmens and ring forts of Ireland, Stonehenge, Celtic and Roman excavations of Roman Britain, Contemporary Celtic Design, Mayan Art and Archeology, North American First Nation traditional designs,

Fine art Design and Painting: Celtic Design source books and construction as well as books by Fitzpatrick and Davies. Source books for Native American Designs, Chinese and Japanese traditional designs, as well as Mayan, Incan and Aztecs source books. Materials use books for Pastel, Watercolor, Oil and Acrylic, Polymer Clay, woodblock and lino block printing techniques, mono printing and collage, and books on the construction of glass bead sculptures.

I have collections in the pursuit of learning German, French, Spanish, Italian, Latin, Greek and Irish, with original works of literature in all these languages. The largest number of individual works are in German, French, and then Italian, Latin, Irish, Spanish and Greek.

There is also a small collection of Feminist writings by Mary Daly and Andria Dworkin.

Mathematics and Physics: Chaos Theory and Fractals

I am very fond of Apuleius' Metamorphoses or The Golden Ass.

I love to read and admire the works of Umberto Eco; my books/Novellas are English translations. Many of his works weave in esoterica from the middle ages, or other periods of history, as well as multiple languages.

I have in recent years read many of the Dexter Books by Jeffry Lindsay.

I love the works of John le Carre (Smilie's People; Tinker Tailor, Soldier, Spy; Our kind of Traitor; etc.), and also enjoy the works by Ken Follet (Eye of the Needle; and Pillars of the Earth; for example).

From there I started to get into all the various works by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Childs, either together or separately. Their Modern Sherlock Holmes character in Agent Pendergast is particularly delightful.

I have also enjoyed the writings of the Irish author Tana French: In the Woods, and its sequel. I am a dual National and have lived in Dublin at various times. I considered living there as a working artist in the early 1990s.

I was an early lover of the writings of Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Breakfast of Champions; Jailbird; Look at the Birdie; etc.)

Recently I have begun reading the works of Bernard Cornwell (Swordsong; Heretic; Burning Land; Pale Horseman; etc.).

I really enjoy well researched and compellingly written non-fiction such as Edward Kritzler's: Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean, which is a fantastic retelling of the history of piracy in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries and the crucial role the Hebrew Nation played as a direct result of the racist, murderous policies in Spain.

Because of my History of Art Background, I have made a study of early Christian Mss. and the writings of the Church Fathers and early Christians. In this vein I enjoy works such as the Five Gospels (a modern translation by the Jesus Seminar which includes the Gospel of Thomas, as well as in depth annotations and historical and literary analysis of the Gospels with the hopes of discerning which passages have that seminal truth and which are likely additions by later transcribers) and works by Timothy Freke: The Jesus Mysteries (which looks at the Pagan God origins of the cult of Jesus) and The Gospel of the Second Coming (a humorous, speculative, telling of Jesus' reactions to what has been done and said in his name when he returns for our final judgment).

I have recently read Jim Fergus': One Thousand White Women, which is a historical telling of the treaty the US government had with one of the western Indian Nations (Navajo or Apache perhaps) where they gave the US 1000 horses and the US sent 1000 white women (often they were from mental asylums and the criminal classes) to help repopulate their tribe. They had to remain with their Indian husbands for one or two years, long enough to try and conceive and then bear a child, then they had the option to return to white society but leaving any progeny behind. This has been recounted by one of the few well-educated women from a wealthy family, through letters she wrote to her sister. She had been in an mental institution, put there by her family for having run away to marry a man they considered beneath her station. She was not insane and considered this exchange her gateway to freedom.

Recently I have been looking at books by James Rollins (Altar of Eden; Doomsday Key) and Eric Lustbader (Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Sanction - a New Jason Bourne Novel) and also works by Holly Black (Valiant - a Modern Tale of Faerie).

I also confess a fondness for the Harry Potter books by J K Rowling as read by Jim Dale....they helped me to get to sleep at night when my illness was seriously troubling me. I have read all the works she has created to accompany the series, such as the school books that Harry would have had to buy and read. I think she was very creative and made great use of Latin in creating the spell incantations, as well as adapting the supernatural creatures of myth to fit into this modern context as well as creating some creatures of her own design.

I have a large collection of Science Fiction, from Frank Herbert (The Dune sextet -- I have read all of his works),and have read some of the works by his son Brian Herbert,as well as Poul Anderson, Heinlein, Larry Silvers and Niven (The Integral Trees, etc.) to the traditional Asimov and Clarke, to the modern Orson Scott Card (Ender's Game; Xenocide; Empire; Speaker for the Dead; etc.). There is nothing like good science fiction to get the mind thinking about one's own reality. I also appreciate Fantasy writing, such as the Alchemist Series by Michael Scott (which uses historical figures from the past in the weaving of his story, and he also makes significant use of the mythologies of earlier cultures around the world to great effect) and a mixture of the two (Sci-Fi/Fantasy), but I generally prefer serious Science Fiction.

Since the year 1999 I have had very bad double vision that we have not been able to mange or alter well using either glasses or surgery on my eye muscles to get them to work in unison. The loss of the proper use of my eyes has been devastating not only as a scholar but as an artist. But I have tried to continue as best I can. Usually, I get as many of the books I am interested in on CD through my local library or on cassette or as an E-book through the National Library for the Blind and Disabled. Any Books unavailable in these formats I have to try and read as best I can with the use of heavy prism glasses, which help a lot, but I can only read a little at a time because the glasses do not completely correct the problem and I still see double, which puts a strain on my eyes, which tire easily. If I push beyond their limit (which varies between a few paragraphs per day to 4-5 pages per day) my vision will become even more doubled and I can even vomit from my world being so out of sync visually. It makes it very had to read anything in print or even on the PC. Enlarging on the screen helps, but the act of moving my eyes back and forth, aggravates the problem. I am not even able to trully watch TV or movies. I must listen to them mostly and not look directly at the screen for too long. This has been the way of it for 12 years now. It was much worse in the beginning, probably because it was a new problem. I think there must be times when it is not as bad and that seems to corrospond whith brief periods when the illness seems not as angry and active, but no matter the severity, this severe double vision seems to be a permenant part of my life for now.

Perhaps there are others out there who battle this problem and have suggestions for me, perhaps they know of OCR readers (free or inexpensive) that could help me with the reading of the e-books that are available now??? Thank you.

--to be continued--

I am an academic reference librarian (generalist with a subject specialty in the History of Art and Fine Art, and foreign languages: German, French, Spanish & Italian), with a chronic, systemic, life-threatening, autoimmune disease which I have had since childhood. It progressed too far, and in 2000 I had to leave the working world on social security disability. I am also a fine artist. However, let me discuss my work as a librarian first.

My last position was as the reference librarian responsible for the departments & collections of Art History/Fine Art, Anthropology/Sociology, Spanish/Italian, Latin American Studies, and the classroom library education for German studies for Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts for 2 years (full-time, faculty position). Before that, I was a reference librarian (half-time) at the Douglass library of Rutgers University in East Brunswick, New Jersey for 3 years as well as a reference librarian at the East Brunswick Public Library (half-time) for 1 year (concurrently). The E.B. Public Library had the finest business reference collection openly accessible to the public in NJ, and had special state funds designated to allow them to develop one of the finest all-around reference collections to the purpose that any library within the state (and even outside the state) could call E.B.P.L. for assistance in pursuit of patron inquiries, as well as being the base library for the evening telephone call-in program (9 pm - midnight), where a librarian devoted up to 5 minutes to each caller's questions -- these librarians had to be fast and accurate.

I was also highly active in my professional organizations, primarily ARLIS-NA (Art Libraries Society of North America), both nationally and with the local chapters. I held the positions of Chairperson for the Diversity Committee, and Moderator for the Indigenous Art and Culture Round Table, and had the privileged of being selected for a travel scholarship to the annual conference held in San Antonio, TX in the year 1997, as well as presenting a small paper at the annual conference held in Philadelphia in 1998. The more practical accomplishment was the fact that I had recently begun to use an electric wheelchair and traveled to both of these conferences, among others, as well as most of my job interviews around the country (even as far away as Tempe, AZ) by myself -- reveling in the freedom the chair's mobility was able to give me.

I have my A. B. in Fine Art from Bryn Mawr College, 1985 (specializing in oil painting and print making: intaglio, lithography, and hand rubbed prints from hand-cut wood blocks, but am also adept at B&W photography, pen & ink, drawing, and was learning sculpture, pastel painting, and Celtic design). Besides oils, I am now an accomplished pastel painter, acrylic painter and utilized gouache to great effect in my original Celtic Designs, with the hopes to expand into egg tempers for my Celtic Designs. I am currently learning polymer clay and watercolor. I am fascinated by the chemistry in making paint and have written informal manuals for myself and students, including an encyclopedia of artists pigments.

At Bryn Mawr College, I was initially interested in the Sciences or majoring in Math, but this illness I have and did not know about back then, inadvertently helped to choose which paths I was able to pursue fully. Even though I was a double major in Math and Fine Art, in my junior year I changed to fine Art only. I see it as a gift that this illness forced me to explore and enjoy a talent I might have neglected otherwise. In my senior year I was invited to apply fr graduate work in the History of Art at BMC by one of my professors who thought I had a talent for the subject and should study it further. Although I entered in the fall of 1985/spring 1986, I had to take a four year leave of absence from 1988-1992 when the illness became to severe - I was finally diagnosed by the chief of Rheumatology at Mt Sinai in Feb. 1990, and he has saved my life on several occasions since.

I have my M. A. in the History of Art from Bryn Mawr College (1994). I initially focused on Insular Manuscripts of the 8th & 9th centuries, but changed to focus on Northern Renaissance Art, specifically the art and patronage of Joachim Patinir, whom Albrecht Durer sought out to meet and called the Father of Landscape Painting. I read the diary (in pre-codified German) of Lucas Rem, his only known patron (three known paintings), and also examined his other known purchases by prominent artists of the day (Lucas Cranach the Elder & Metsys). I put forth the theory that through Rem's prominent position, he very well may have acted as a go-between for Patinir (and perhaps other artists) and the courts of Spain and Portugal where he spent much time in the pursuit of his family's business (the driving economic triangle of the day of German metals/Spices from first India, and then the West Indies/and Textiles from the Low Countries). Rem was one of the most powerful and well connected merchants of his day, and the wealth of all Europe depended in part on choices he personally made.

I have my M.L.S. in Information and Library Studies from Rutgers University 1996, with emphasis on academic reference librarian work, collection development, library management as well as user studies, education, pathfinder creation and web page design.

--to be continued--