User:Rue aux Justes



= Rue aux Justes = Hello, I'm Charles F Ryder. I live in England and visit my holiday home in France six times a year. I'm a semi-retired designer and arts professional with interests in design, painting, art history and French literature.

Education

 * I have a secondary school degree with honours from Fountain Valley School of Colorado, Colorado Springs, Colorado.
 * I have a BA in Fine Art from Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vermont.
 * I have an M.Arch in Architecture from Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture and Planning, New York.

My professional life evolved like this:

 * Graduate school and journeyman period working for architects in New York.
 * Museums and gallery design part 1, New York, working at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and freelance for the Guggenheim Museum, the Frick Collection, the American Federation of the Arts and the Smithsonian Institution.
 * Museums and gallery design part 2, New York, London and the Middle East, designing the Museum of Islamic Art of the Kuwait National Museum, the New Sculpture Gallery at Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, and freelance projects for the National Gallery London, English Heritage and the National Trust.
 * International curating including design and gallery management for Kingston University London, design and curation for Richard Demarco, and curation, design, production of transitstation.
 * Freelance design specialising in print and websites for artists and musicians.

I enjoy these activities:
My favourite fiction authors include Honoré de Balzac, Doris Lessing, and Georges Duhamel.
 * Information design (print and internet)
 * Painting
 * Reading and book collecting
 * Science Fiction in literature and film
 * Speaking and reading French
 * Walking by the sea.

My favourite non-fiction authors include T. J. Clark, James Elkins, and John Rewald.

My favourite poet is C. P. Cavafy.

I have recently finished reading The Vexations of Art by Svetlana Alpers.

Things I like
I like spending time with my family. I like creating websites and other forms of digital communication. I love to be in my studio in France, painting and drawing, influenced by Puvis de Chavannes, George Braque, to name but two.

Current professional activities
I am self-employed at ryderdesign.