Finally...
This Is The Last Of It...
Or Is It?
My favorite media are: oils on canvas, watercolors, pencil drawings, black & white or moody color photography, prints, colorful computer graphics, multi-media collage and objects/scenes carved from wood or stone. I enjoy almost anything that strikes me as emotionally truthful and/or compassionate, even if highly abstract or symbolic, but I prefer more realistic images, (ie. except for very gratuitous violence or graphic sexual/pornographic scenes).
Recently, late 2003, I attended a gallery show & book signing for my cousin, Peggy O'Connor-Macnamara's wildlife watercolor paintings. She is the artist in residence for the Field Museum, and teaches about her love. Her work is wonderful, well-detailed, with soft strokes and color. Check it out on her website eg. http://PeggyMacnamara.Com
My favorite painters were mostly from the Impressionist period, especially landscapes of Monet's & Van Gogh's, but again, I like a lot of styles or individual works from artists whose names I don't know or can't remember now, especially photographers.
Of course, I am an artist in multiple ways & media...!
...I spent most of my youth, painting & drawing and learning other visual art forms.
I took various classes, like piano when I was nine, other visual art classes as a preteen, etc. When I was 12, I took guitar lessons, started singing and even composing some of my own songs.
In high school, I was commissioned to paint a few things by friends of the family.
I was also starting to write poetry, in addition to composing songs, and began singing in public. Although I was a biology major in college,
I minored in music and developed my abilities in classical voice and general talent for public performance of all my music. Also, a few of my poems were published in my college's annual arts journal.
Throughout late grammar school, high school, then college & beyond I developed those visual & musical art forms, and became publicly known in some circles for my performances, etc., though I never really aspired to do them full-time or use them as my sole source of income. 
In the late 80's, I learned photography
and developed my
writing abilities as well; I've had some of my work in both areas published in an animal shelter magazine, a LesBiGay newspaper and a Women's Music & Culture magazine. Most recently, I'm less active in all of these due to depression and the meds I take 
to counter those symptoms, but since I began exploring the internet, I also started learning HTML, in order to create these web pages. My artistic goals, abilities & expressions are forever evolving as I age and dream, more or less!
Georgia O'Keeffe, Monet, Rubens, Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, Picasso, Da Vinci; I'd love to see how any of their styles would influence a portrait of a contemporary dwarf woman.
Art is any & everywhere, that is if you look for and want to find it!
Folk, country, blues, R & B/Motown, classic rock (ie. from 50s, 60s, through 80s), Classical & Baroque periods, Swing & big band era, some jazz and international - ethnic sounds.
There are far too many to mention them all or even choose my top 5 or 10. The first ones to come to mind however are: k.d. lang, 
Joan Baez, Emmylou Harris, Laura Love, Aretha Franklin, Melissa Etheridge, Tracy Chapman, Cris Williamson, Tret Fure, Bonnie Koloc, Alix Dobkin, Judy Collins, Indigo Girls, Catie Curtis, Venus Envy & Derivative Duo (ie. lesbian musical comedy), Linda Ronstadt, Joni Mitchell and Bonnie Raitt, etc. Notice how the first ones to come 
to mind are all women, many lesbians (ie. womyn). The first 5 of these womyn... I'd probably "sell a kidney" to see & especially meet them in person, (although I have already met Laura Love in person and had my picture taken with her.... She even signed my Famous Dyke Shirt! - see collectibles below.)
-- I have also enjoyed (ie. and still do) some men's music, like the Beatles, John Denver, Rolling Stones, Jackson Browne, Nat King Cole, Sam Cook, Vince Gil, Clint Black, The Flirtations (ie. this group and the next one=
!), Romanovsky & Phillips and James Taylor, etc. However, I'm less likely to spend money to see/hear them or seek their latest recordings, because women need my money more and I can't afford very much in the first place.
(ie. 3/02); Lucie Blue Tremblay & Vickie Shaw, a wonderful french-canadian singer/songwriter/musician & a hilarious very femme southern comic, great lesbian themed music & humor, at a women's coffeehouse here in Chicago (ie. MMCH). I'll probably go see the infamous Alix Dobkin, in July, at the same coffeehouse as I do annually & enjoy her just as much each time!
The Monkees, when I was a preteen. I had a big crush on Davy Jones then, like every other 10 or 12 year old.
Most often at home, where I can either do chores or relax with it in the background. Also, I enjoy casual, non-crowded concert venues, like coffeehouses or outdoor music festivals, especially if I've never heard the artist before. That way I can get a better idea of how the artist really sounds and their emotional expressions of the composition.
I'm still thinking about this one.....?
Chicago's US 99-FM (ie. Country), The LOOP/98.7FM (ie. mostly classic rock), N.P.R (ie. Public Radio) & WFMT (ie. mostly classical/fine arts), to name a few, but any station that plays a variety of music, from classical, Irish, folk & country to oldies, 60s & 80s rock, etc.
There are so many types of music that I have enjoyed and multiple artists within each type, that choosing the top recordings of all time seems a bit presumptuous of me. Of course, from my memories throughout my childhood, adolescence, early adulthood until the present, despite whatever happened to me or around me then, the feelings stirred upon hearing some of the music played during those times are always happy.
My parents loved Nat King Cole, Tony Bennet, Perry Como, Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney, Frank Sinatra, Doris Day, along with the big band sounds of Glen Miller, Tommy Dorsey & Benny Goodman, etc. My older siblings played the Beatles, Stones, Doors, Kinks, CSNY (ie. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young), Aretha Franklin, Supremes, Temptations, among others.
After I grew past my childhood crushes on the Monkees, David Cassidy & the Partridge Family, Jackson Five, along with the Osmonds, et al., my tastes evolved into a variety of folk and adult soft rock, like Carol King, Elton John, James Taylor, Bee Gees, Don McClean, John Denver, Janis Ian, Bonnie Koloc, Ginni Clemmons, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Joni Mitchel, Bonnie Raitt, Anita Baker, Patti LaBelle and Linda Ronstadt, etc. which then led me to Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton (ie. together as Trio or as solo country artists) and other women artists in country music (eg. Patty Loveless, Faith Hill, Lorrie Morgan, The Judds, Terri Clark, Suzy Boggus, Pam Tillis & Mary Chapin Carpenter,...), until I came out and fell in love with my current favorites: kd lang, Lucie Blue Tremblay, Laura Love, Indigo Girls, Melissa Etheridge, Nedra Johnson, Cris Williamson, Tret Fure, Alix Dobkin and Jamie Anderson, among many others.
This list of artists is already too long, but I'm still forgetting others that come to mind briefly, though not including them in name/style, that I would probably could name at least one album for each artist's popular songs that have influenced me as the years went by. To me it doesn't seem fair to cite the album/CD titles from just a few of these artists and claim that those are "THE BEST OF ALL TIME". Music is such a personal medium, and it's arrogant for anyone to claim that anyone's choices are superior over another!
� 2003+
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