About Me

All joking aside, this one page on my blog has received 189 hits since April 4th, 2007 … there can be no doubt, it is time to tell you the purpose of my blog as well as a bit about myself.

To begin then, my blog is a personal one and, while the title A Little Bit o’ Everything! may seem somewhat vague, it was meant to reflect my varied interests that have been described by some as eclectic (see my first blog entry aptly titled “What’s with that title?“). Those interests range from photography, writing and art, to gardening, woodworking, science, computers, history and music (to name just a few)! Thus, this blog serves as an opportunity for me to show you in images and words just how I express my many interests. That sounds rather egotistical of me, doesn’t it? To think that the world could be that interested in seeing what I like to do. The fact is, however, that this blog also serves as an opportunity for me to practice, to various degrees, my professional interests too.

You see, my work background is in illustration, graphic arts and book publishing with illustration and graphic arts being my first loves. In the 1990s, I also practiced nature photography as an avocation, occasionally publishing and exhibiting my work. Now, when it came to illustration work, for the most part, what I did was technical in nature including some patent drawing. But, on occasion, I also got the opportunity to do some medical illustration. Here is where I must apologize to technical illustrators and writers because, in all honesty, I did find medical illustration to be far more stimulating to my science/technology and creative senses. For these reasons (and several others), I decided to specialize in medical and biological illustration (including writing and multimedia). However, this time, I wanted to prepare myself properly! That is, I wanted the education and the academic degrees necessary to pursue medical illustration and, since the year 2000, I have been doing just that (and I’m still not finished, a “bout” with breast cancer has somewhat altered my path and, thus, lengthened the time that I’ve taken to reach my goals). In May 2003, I graduated with an Associate in Arts degree from North Shore Community College, Danvers, MA and this past February 2007, I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Tufts University, Medford, MA.

So, how does a personal blog serve as an opportunity to stay in practice with such interests? Well, since February, I’ve been taking a little break from academics and discovered that I’ve also lost the opportunity to practice writing essays (and, while attending classes, I lost the opportunity to practice illustration and photography). By having to make blog entries, by having to include images (cause blog readers LOVE images), I’m forced if you will (though it doesn’t really take much effort to force me) to come up with ideas, to write (and rewrite), to think about accompanying images, and so on.

So, there you have it! Eleven months and 189 hits later, I’ve now told you what my blog means to me and given you just a little hint about what my goals are to boot!

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Favorites

Since the names and links of a couple of my favorite photographers have been sitting on this page almost from day one, I suppose I should put together a better list of favorites here instead.

Photographers

John Shaw, Master of Close-up
Carr Clifton, Master of Landscape

Artists

First, although I’m not certain I’d call him a “favorite,” I have been building quite an extensive collection of books called “The Netter Collection of Medical Illustrations.” This is a series of 13 volumes of anatomical and physiological illustrations by Dr. Frank Netter, once published by the Ciba Pharmaceutical Co. (now called Novartis). I also have a May/June 1976 issue of The Saturday Evening Post with an interview of Dr. Netter titled “Dr. Frank Netter: Medicine’s Michelangelo” by Frederic A. Birmingham.

I’ll be telling you more about my collection and my plans for this collection in a future professional blog I’m putting together!

Wildlife Artists

Okay, there’s no suspense here! I love wildlife art but picking some favorite artists is a bit challenging for me. I suppose I could name Morten Solberg, Manfred Schatz (deceased, represented by many fine art galleries) and Carl Brenders (represented by The Mill Pond Press and many fine art galleries) as just a few of my favorites.

Books

Believe it or not, I love “how-to’s” in just about every interest of mine. What this means, however, is that I’ve got way too many to mention here!

I also love biographies, memoirs, journals, anything about artists, literary figures, some historical figures, etc. For example;

Wilbur and Orville, A Biography of the Wright Brothers by Fred Howard
Max Perkins, Editor of Genius by A. Scott Berg
Ernie’s War, The Best of Ernie Pyle’s World War II Dispatches by David Nichols
Desert Queen, The Extraordinary Life of Gertrude Bell by Janet Wallach
A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
The Monk in the Garden, The Lost and Found Genius of Gregor Mendel,
the Father of Genetics by Robin Marantz Henig
Leonardo da Vinci by Sherwin B. Nuland

And, currently I’m working on;

Mockingbird, A Portrait of Harper Lee by Charles J. Shields

Now, I’m not certain whether or not I’d call these next two books “historical novels” or not, however, when I mentioned my interest in medical illustration to a professor and advisor at Tufts, he suggested a book titled “The Doctor’s Wife” by Sawako Ariyoshi. The setting is in eighteenth century Japan and it’s about the trials and sacrifices of the wife of a renowned doctor. In short, I fell in love with the author and was fortunate to have another of her novels as required reading titled “The River Ki.” It is set from about the late nineteenth century to about the middle of the twentieth century and chronicles the life of a family, especially the relationship of a mother with her daughters. Next up is “Kabuki Dancer.”

Okay, now don’t get me wrong! I like much, much lighter stuff too. For example, I love just about anything by John Grisham and I’ve also read books such as “A Good Year” by Peter Mayle (I saw the movie too, it was okay but … ). And, who hasn’t read “The DaVinci Code” by Dan Brown (although, I’ve not seen that movie). I’m also currently working on a second book titled “Till We Eat Again, Confessions of a Diet Dropout” by Judy Gruen.

Oh yes! And one more novel that I’m working on (yes, yes, I have several books going at once) is “Islands in the Stream” by Ernest Hemingway.

Still a work in progress! But then again, isn’t everyones?