An unrepentant passion for knowledge and all things beautiful combined with a desire to fly with my imagination unfettered throughout an ever expanding universe has given birth to TEN THOUSAND SUSPECTS and RayandaArts.com. Fraternal twins that are my bundles of joy.

Although created in tandem with RayandaArts.com, the novel came first. Then the paintings, with Swinton's Art Supplies, Mona Lisa and Upper Canada Stretchers as valuable resources. All the paintings needed to be photographed, so I bought a Canon PowerShot Pro1, which introduced me to the awesome creative potential inherent in photo editing applications like Photoshop. Hence the background images and my digital creations. The clone stamp and I are old buddies.

Learning XHTML came next, followed by CSS. I hand-coded the whole site with GoLive then had to switch over to Dreamweaver when Adobe discontinued GoLive. I found that James Pence's How to Do Everything with HTML & XHTML and Matthew MacDonald's Creating Web Sites: The Missing Manual, provided me with a solid introduction to web development. While Lie and Bos' Cascading Style Sheets: Designing for the Web (3rd edition) combined with Max Design tutorials on the net, gave me a solid footing in CSS. Through it all, w3c.org has been my guide.

Along the way, I had to crack Adobe Acrobat to set up TEN THOUSAND SUSPECTS as a PDF file.

Then came the problem of how to display my gallery images, but thanks to Lokesh Dhakar and the beautiful brains behind Prototype and Scriptaculous, there's Lightbox, which is a dream.

I also took a few months to acquaint myself with every Government of Canada document and/or tutorial I could find that relates to starting your own business. Everything I read at that time continues to be of value. How? Let me put it this way: I have launched without incurring any debt. No bank or creditor owns any part of Rayanda Arts.

It's been an extraordinary journey. One that has left me feeling lucky for the opportunity to actually do it. I happened to have been born in Canada, a wondrous country that does not hinder the education of women, and I live in a province that was founded on and continues to be sustained by a fervid, unquenchable entrepreneurial spirit. I want to thank Morgan and Brianna for standing by me even when they thought my plans were “crazy” and a waste of precious resources, and it meant we had to eat rice pudding for weeks at a time. And Lorraine for her uncanny insights and invaluable understanding.

You are my champions.

Where to from here?

A trained journalist from the political science stream at university, I'm an unmitigated news junky. So a blog is definitely on the roster for RayandaArts.com. I'm also busy at work on two more novels, and I'm working on a series of playful nudes in acrylic and watercolor.

In the years it took me to bring Rayanda Arts to the net, I encountered one problem after another, much the same as anyone starting from scratch yet intent upon turning an idea into a working reality. But no matter what problem arose, there was always someone on the net to help. For that, and all the good you do for others needing your knowledge and skills, I dedicate this site to you, and everyone like you I haven't encountered but hope to. I heartily applaud you.

This one's for you.