Diana Francocci Royal Leamington Spa England Diana Francocci came to art naturally having been raised in a family of artists. Both of Diana's parents are artists, specialising in ceramics. It follows that art has played a key role in her life. She is currently taking a one year sabbatical from studies in Fine-Art, at Warwickshire College.       Living in the heart of England (in Shakespeare country), she resides with her husband and two of her four teenage children.  And, like most of us, she has held a variety of "day jobs" which include nursing and teacher training. Her main profession was that of a tattoo artist, and at one time had her own studio in her hometown.       She retired from that occupation to undertake Fine art training, and spent a few years doing an applied arts course in ceramics, followed by Access to Fine Art and then the Dip H. E. in Fine Art, which will lead to a BA.       Currently Diana is also training in voluntary work for a British advisory service, which she finds very rewarding, and publishing a delightful website magazine called "More Tea Vicar"? Says Diana; "I am looking forward to bringing you a list of leading art events, news, and reviews from the UK and looking forward to hearing from you all."

F. W. James Springfield, Ohio USA Mr. F. W. James is a visual artist and computer programmer. He brings these two diversified skills together to build exceptional World Wide Web (WWW) sites. He says, "It helps to be a graphic designer, cartoonist and animator, and to have a passion for  managing computer programming complexities to build WWW site. The objective is to  design so well that the WWW site are continuously revisited."  Mr. James got into developing and managing computers after 15 years as  a Federal Government visual information specialist. With the advent of using computers for drafting and visual aids, the Air Force did not need to continuing  employing illustrators and artists. The career field vanished. Fortunately, he had already made the transition to using computers and was supplementing his civil service income by teaching computer graphics at a junior college.

John Hagan (yes, that is John, pictured) Australia 'In 1966 on receiving news of his rejection of a free trip to Viet Nam he departed Australia for England where he graduated from Newland's Park University College with distinctions in art, psychology and philosophy - and a university blue in the sport of fencing which was gained primarily due to his providing transport for the team rather than any major successes with the blade.  His first exhibition was in 1975 when he learnt the hard commercial reality that supplying free drinks and food to the general public did not guarantee equivalent largess on their part.  Since then he has held many more exhibitions, travelled the world and  been occupied as a professional painter, writer and illustrator.  He has worked as a portrait painter,  a landscape painter, a sports illustrator, and a genre painter of historical events as well as a garbage collector and a labourer - and all this he said,  between long bouts of unemployment. He has painted portraits of two premiers and one  Prime minister.  Hagan does not describe himself as an 'artist' in the contemporary  sense as he peddles no  message, nor is he a devotee of  world peace or environmental cleansing - but rather he aspires to career as a  painter-craftsman where form, design, and colour are the pure elements of a painting and story telling is the backbone of  the novel.  Where 'art' is a synonym for  subtlety and painting merely the means of its execution.  As a writer Hagan says he has also worked as a part-time journalist's assistant - he used to order the drinks (and once even had a bar tab in the Foreign Correspondence's Club in Hong Kong).  While abroad he wrote at least  three letters home but until now has undertaken no major writing projects.... etc.'

Marianne Molgard Kimstad,  Ostergotland Sweden  Marianne Mölgård  was born Oct. 20, 1953 and raised in a little village called Kimstad, about 15 km from Norrköping  in the state Östergötland, Sweden.      She atended school in Skarblacka and Finspaang, graduating in 1971, as a secretary. She worked in different offices in the  neighborhood for about 15 years as a secretary and drawing technical constructions for the factory business, landscape,  garden’s, architect drawings. Afternoons she went to classes in oil, watercolor and nude  drawing ( Kroki ).      For a ten-year period she studied with the artist Börje Elwi Carlsson, who was born in Denmark, living in Sweden, Helsingborg.  Börje is a famous Artist, who graduated with a Gold medal in many European countries. The last 5 years she has taught acrylic, watercolor and drawing, charcoal, for several afternoon-classes.  She and her students have had several public Art exhibitions, one in Söderköping Museum, 1997 ( tree miles south from Norrköping) Sank Ragnhilds Gille.    As an nonprofessional painter she draws/paints portrait, landscape, animal or customers favorite object, from photographs, in different media, acrylic, watercolor, charcoal, drawing.

 

JAMES S. LANE VINCENT, OHIO USA Mr. Lane describes himself as fifty-ish, balding, bearded,  bespecled, professorial, outgoing, knowledgable about  a lot of things, expert on a very few. He grew up in the small town of Stockport,  situated on the Muskingum River in Southeastern Ohio, USA. He graduated from an un-noteworthy business college in Cincinnati, from the U.S. Air Force, and from Ohio University where he also obtained a masters degree and wracked up several hours of post-graduate work as well.       Happily married for well over a quarter-century, he successfully taught elementary and high school art for a similiar length of time. "I've also spent many enjoyable hours in the front of a local community college classroom.", says Lane. "Recently I have retired from teaching in favor of writing web pages,  traveling, and doing things I've never done before."      For most of his professional life he has run a portrait business out of his home, specializing in sports portraits done in pencil and colored pencil. "Aside from a few painted portraits, painting has always been more of a hobby than a source of income which makes me an amateur in every sense except my educational background in the area."  James Lane will be contributing written articles for Artist World Magazine monthly. (ed.)

 
 

KELLEY DUPUIS  Born Oct. 12, 1955 St. Albans, Vermont.   Raised in southern California, attended Southwestern College and San Diego State University (class of '77, double-major in journalism and history.)   Worked as a newspaper and radio journalist 1979-85, first on the staff of the Imperial Valley Press in El Centro, California, then for a time on the Vacaville, California Reporter  and finally as news reporter/anchor on KUIC-FM radio in Vacaville-Fairfield, California.  My freelance articles and photographs have been published in the San Francisco Chronicle,  the San Diego Reader,  the Vallejo (CA) Times-Herald  and the Stars & Stripes, the U.S. Armed Forces daily newspaper. Joined the U.S. State Department in 1985 as a foreign service communications specialist; my articles, reviews and poetry have also appeared in State Magazine and the Foreign Service Journal.