"Ruth" |30x40 oil on canvas| This piece is a tribute to Mary Ruth Shuler Dieter, who was one of the last remaining packhorse librarians of Eastern Kentucky.  In Alaska, there are bush plane librarians, in Africa, camel librarians, in Louisiana there were floating librarians pulling flat boats in the Bayous, in Thialand they used elephants, and in Zimbabwe, donkeys. We imagine librarians to be quiet book worms but what I love about their role in history is that they were and are some of the most subversive and brave women.