Ann Rudder

o quote the late, great John Lennon, "Life is what happens while you're busy making plans." I always wanted to be an artist. I am an artist. My plan did not include heraldry. I didn't know what it was, had not a clue. It wasn't in my family's vocabulary. But art was!

My dad, Frank Lisle Rudder, errant merchant seaman, Bajan, could paint real good--a natural with oils, watercolours, from eye and hand. It's a pity I don't have anything of his art except memories. Aunt Winnie could paint, too, oils. I remember a lilac tree in full bloom. (Cousin Leslie has that.) But I was drawing and winning contests at age six or seven or so. They seemed like true gratification for me. I won a Bill Baird puppet contest on TV. Successfully drew Mr. Tooth Decay in New Jersey. Funny how these little things were the inspiration to keep on keeping on.

But I do have a comprehension now of heraldry, of what symbolic life means to me and others. My first cognitive emblem was a 10-inch banner of a winged heart to go behind a rock 'n' roll band. After a few more pieces, I realized what the art form was. Then, as the application of the artworks grew before me, I began acquiring a library of source materials to study the history of heraldry.