ALAN RYALL

As a kid growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area

during the Second World War, Alan built model

airplanes and boats, learned woodworking techniques

from an old German cabinetmaker, and practiced

pen-and-ink drawing with considerable help from

his favorite aunt Marjorie, a free-lance artist who

drew ladies' clothing ads for the White House

and other department stores in "The City." He was

also fascinated with boats and the idea of sailing

the Seven Seas, and as a college student bought a

surplus whaleboat that kept sinking at the Berkeley

yacht harbor and finally had to be scrapped.

Alan's budding art/modeling/cabinetmaking/

sailing career was interrupted, first by the Army

(where he only made Corporal but learned to

type and speak Russian), and later by a career

in seismology that involved him initially in

university seismological research and teaching,

later in industrial and government research

management and international negotiations on

nuclear test ban monitoring (which gave him

the opportunity to use his Russian and travel to

a lot of places not usually included in package vacations).

While living in Virginia toward the end of this

44-year interlude, Alan again returned to his

early interests and took up sailing, ship modeling

and nautical history as hobbies. On returning to

California in 1995 he turned in earnest to his old

fascination with art, completing seventeen

formal courses at Las Positas College

(mostly under Bill Paskewitz, MFA Queens College, New york

,in art history, art appreciation, drawing,

art materials, photography, life drawing, watercolor,

and oil/acrylic painting. Almost all of his paintings

have been of maritime subjects, and eight of them

have been shown in juried exhibitions open only

to members of the American Society of Marine Artists

- three shows in Coos Bay, one in Ventura,

and the 12th National ASMA Exhibition in

Dennis, Massachusetts and Wilmington, Delaware.

Eventually Alan plans to focus on accurate renderings

of historic sailing ships in various settings -

the American Revolution, the War of 1812,

and the British Navy's suppression of the slave trade.

Similar to the late Tom Hoyne, he hopes to work

in part from scale ship models, and is in the process

of modeling a Baltimore schooner/slaver that

was captured in 1830 and used to chase other slavers.

He has also collected a large amount of material

for an author-illustrated docu-novel based on

the history of that ship, and plans to spend much

of his time over the next few years on that project.