The Dutchess Abroad web site (dutchessabroad.com) is a little different in that there was closer collaboration with the principal than with most sites, and we have a site that is particularly unique and interesting because of it.

The owner, Judith van Praag, is a very interesting and gifted artist with a wide range of talent, who is currently pursuing a number of interests including architecture, painting, and writing - portraits in color or words. These portraits are not necessarily of people. They can be of things, places, and ideas. Judith has a rich and varied creative past which she draws upon in her current work, and since she normally does free lance work, sharing this is one of the purposes of this web site.

Judith's Dutchess Abroad web site has a great deal of depth and a lot of fun features. You could spend days exploring it and still not see everything it has to offer. Almost every page is full of links. Some of these lead you to places that Judith has lived, worked, or played. Other links open up new pages on the site, and many open up special pop-up windows with closer views of her art, a poem, a related photo, or another gem. Judith's resume pages are a good example of this. The Theater section is particularly fun. Click on any of the images of posters or pages from her scrap books to make photos and clippings come up in popup windows. Some of these windows are small web sites in their own right.

The images which make up the basic page design, such as the background and the graphics behind the page title and navigation links, all come from parts of Judith's artwork. You can see a copy of "Transformation", the original Butterfly linoleum cut, which was the basis for the gold tile that is used for part of the background on home page and the body pages by clicking on the 2nd floating image next to the poem "Lost" on Judith's 1990-2003 page. The red, purple, and black graphic that you see behind the page header in the Curriculum Vitae section is a piece of her hair in a self portrait she painted. The gold, green, white, and pink graphic that you see behind the page header in the Creative Writing and Journalism section comes from a part of her painting titled "Roosters" (which you can see by clicking on the thumbnail image of "Roosters" on the C.V. page for 2004-present.

To illustrate the concept of portraits in pen and provide samples of her writing for prospective clients, Judith selected over 20 column that she has written which were published in the International Examiner, a Seattle publication for Asian Americans immigrants, and people of color. A page is also devoted to her book "Creative Acts of Healing: After a Baby Dies", which attests to the power of creativity and nature as a healing force.

Not only did Judith carefully craft the text for her own site, some of her most recent work includes wordsmithing for web content for other sites. You can read more about this on her Word Smith resume. If you are developing a web site, you should consider contacting Judith van Praag, the Dutchess Abroad, for your writing needs. By the way, this page explains how she got that nickname.