Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} After ... From the Letters of Shirley Mason by Nancy L. Preston Astraea's Web. Please don't base your judgement of multiplicity, or these pages, solely on Sybil or on the real-life Shirley Mason. While we have received overwhelming confirmation that she was multiple and an abuse survivor, her story was unique, and many aspects of her case are controversial. There are a lot of myths about her story, and we carry this information only because so many people have written to us asking for it. Please do not judge all multiples by what you've seen on The United States of Tara . This show is a comedy, it is being played for laughs, it is distorted, inaccurate, and insulting to multiples. Who Was Shirley Mason? Nancy Preston, Sybil's Friend Shirley Mason's friend and student, created this loving tribute to the woman& she knew. Miss Preston was interviewed for the Sybil DVD and that interview is included in the extras. Miss Preston's website, Sybil's Friend, has lots of personal reminiscences about her art teacher, mentor and friend. Dr. Patrick Suraci, Sybil In Her Own Words Blog post by the author of Sybil In Her Own Words: The Untold Story of Shirley Mason, Her Multiple Personalities and Paintings. (Kindle edition here) Dr. Suraci taped many conversations with Shirley Mason during her lifetime, after discovering her art in 1993. This book reveals the truth about Shirley's early life and abuse, her work with Dr. Wilbur and her later life. Dr. Suraci's Authors Guild Blog here. Shirley Mason: The Hidden Paintings Discovered after Shirley's death, these were paintings done by both Shirley and people in her inner family. Stranger In Our Midst How Shirley lived peacefully in Lexington, Kentucky with almost no one the wiser. Unmasking Sybil A few more facts about her life. Who was the real Sybil? From the New Yorker , January 4, 1999. How Much Of 'Sybil' Is Real? The Sybil TV movie starring is not a documentary. It is a heavily fictionalized adaptation which was deliberately coded (using certain types of music, lighting and camera angles) to resemble a horror film. The Sybil book and films -- not Shirley's real life -- are the public image of multiple personalities -- and have done a lot of damage to multiples. ( Please read that if you don't read anything else on this page.) Films such as Three Faces of Eve and Sybil and shows like The United States of Tara should not be viewed as educational: they are not representative or models of "how a real multiple acts". Click here to read more about this. Among the many untruths perpetuated by the Sybil movie remake starring Tammy Blanchard, one of the worst came at the end, with the statement that ended her life as a "recluse". She was an artist who exhibited her paintings at local galleries. She taught art for years, designed toys, and owned her own business. She was a devout member of the Seventh Day Adventist Church and was well known and liked there. Friends and family visited her constantly and there were family members with her when she died. Only a very few people knew Shirley was Sybil. Watch Sybil Movie on TV - The Women's Entertainment Network occasionally shows the original Sybil movie, apparently uncut. Oxygen also shows the Sybil movie uncut. Keep an eye on the schedule. Internet Movie Database Discussion board about the remake. Dr. Cornelia Wilbur's personal papers -- letters, diaries, etc. -- were opened in 2005. This is primarily for the use of researchers like Peter Swales. They were apparently part of the source material used by for her recent trash-expos� book Sybil Exposed . There is no reason to believe that the general public will ever be allowed access to Cornelia Wilbur's papers. There is still no word on when or if her professional records will be opened, and it is likely that this will not happen anytime soon due to issues of client confidentiality. Additionally, it is our understanding that Dr. Wilbur kept very incomplete records, and sometimes did not keep charts or records on her clients at all. Any information on Sybil the book, Sybil the movie, Sybil DVD or Shirley Ardell Mason will be posted here. (And if you think we're doing a bit of SEO there, you're absolutely right.) Was Shirley Mason Really Multiple? Dr. , Sybil: The Making of A Disorder from the New York Review. Was Shirley really multiple? Or did Cornelia Wilbur just talk her into it? Decide for yourself -- but beware: take what Spiegel says with a large grain of salt. He's got a certain view of women and he's using Shirley's story to 'prove that he is right'. Dr. Robert Rieber, All About Sybil: Natural History of a Myth His interpretation of the Sybil tapes he heard, and his version of the MPD scandal of the 80s and 90s and how the misreporting of Sybil's case contributed to it. Again, a lot of what he says is complete nonsense. The mentality of these people can be judged by the way they write. Published by Psycke-Logo Press. Bifurcation of Self A review of Dr. Rieber's book on Sybil, pointing out his obvious nonsense, misinformation and half truths. Originally appeared in the American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis January 2008. On Being The Proper Multiple By Sara Lambert. Even if you actually have the psychiatric MPD condition, it is completely unnecessary to behave like Sybil in order to be authentic or believed. Please don't use the Sybil book or film as a role model , and please do read this article if you have or think you have MPD. Mistaken Identity There is some stuff about Shirley in this BBC Horizons report. Warning: A British friend tells us, "Horizon is a show about taking the subject of a scientific paper and making it into a 'story'. They use the expression 'sheer drama' which means that they can't tell you about the discovery of a new particle without giving you 50 minutes of the amazing chance discovery and people struggling to persuade their doubting collegues of its existence." Anyone who remembers Greer Garson sitting up in bed and gasping "Pierre! What if that stain is radium?!" should be familiar with this phenomenon. The Prodigy Transcripts: Cornelia Wilbur, Richard Kluft and Frank Putnam on MPD Interrogation methods developed and recommended by the foremost "experts" on this condition. One can see how a non-multiple client could become coerced into pretending to have MPD just to get the hell out of there. Doctors Debate Multiplicity as Iatrogenic or PTSD Putnam sees multiplicity as damage, but at least he sees it. Originally appeared in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, July 1995 v34 n7 p957(3). Billy Milligan. Is Billy Milligan a Natural Multiple? A very brief astute observation by an anonymous writer. Other Controversies. Otherkin. Theosophy and later the New Age recognized the possibility of elemental spirits incarnating in human bodies or persons on a "deva" evolution path. Non-theosophical ideas about otherkin (not by that name) evolved before the internet, and are mostly associated with belief systems such as the Faerie Faith. If you're interested, check out Elf Lore Family (this is NOT Wicca). Fictives/Soulbonding. The Kaycee Nicole thing. May 28, 2001: I am posting information about the Kaycee Nicole thing because it is another case of "Violation and Virtuality", not because I think Kaycee/Debbie was multiple. It is relevant in terms of creating and maintaining online identities. Anthony Temple. Life & Death of Jesse James Another very similar story. Again, these people aren't multiple. This is about people who have an obsessive need to lie, not about groups of actual persons sharing a body. It has much more in common with the Megan Meier case than anything else. (In our opinion, there's quite a bit of lying and posturing on both sides of this one, and we don't believe the Harlan Ellison part at all until he comes out and says he was in it.) Metafilter discussion here. Sybil (book) Sybil is a 1973 book by Flora Rheta Schreiber about the treatment of Sybil Dorsett (a pseudonym for Shirley Ardell Mason) for dissociative identity disorder (then referred to as multiple personality disorder ) by her psychoanalyst, Cornelia B. Wilbur. The book was made into two movies of the same name, once in 1976 and again as a television movie in 2007. Contents. Summary. Mason is given the pseudonym "Sybil" by her therapist to protect her privacy. Originally in treatment for social anxiety and memory loss, after extended therapy involving amobarbital and hypnosis interviews, Sybil manifests sixteen personalities. Wilbur encouraged Sybil's various selves to communicate and reveal information about her life. Described personalities. The book begins with a list of Sybil's "alters", together with the year in which each appeared to have dissociated from the central personality. The names of these selves were also changed to ensure privacy. Sybil Isabel Dorsett (1923), the main personality Victoria Antoinette Scharleau (1926), nicknamed Vicky, self-assured and sophisticated young French girl Peggy Lou Baldwin (1926), assertive, enthusiastic, and often angry Peggy Ann Baldwin (1926), a counterpart of Peggy Lou but more fearful than angry Mary Lucinda Saunders Dorsett (1933), a thoughtful, contemplative, and maternal homebody Marcia Lynn Dorsett (1927), an extremely emotional writer and painter Vanessa Gail Dorsett (1935), intensely dramatic is the musical one of them and fun loving. Mike Dorsett (1928), one of Sybil's two male selves, a builder and a carpenter Sid Dorsett (1928), the second of Sybil's two male selves, a carpenter and a general handyman. Sid took his name from Sybil's initials ( S ybil I sabelle D orsett), Nancy Lou Ann Baldwin (date undetermined), interested in politics as fulfillment of Biblical prophecy and intensely afraid of Roman Catholics Sybil Ann Dorsett (1928), listless to the point of neurasthenia Ruthie Dorsett (date undetermined), a baby and one of the less developed selves Clara Dorsett (date undetermined), intensely religious and highly critical of Sybil Helen Dorsett (1929), intensely afraid but determined to achieve fulfillment Marjorie Dorsett (1928), serene, vivacious, and quick to laugh The Blonde (1946), a nameless perpetual teenager with an optimistic outlook. The book's narrative describes Sybil's selves gradually becoming co-conscious, able to communicate and share responsibilities, and having musical compositions and art published under their various names. Wilbur attempts to integrate Sybil's various selves, first convincing them via hypnosis that they are all the same age, then encouraging them to merge. At the book's end, a new, optimistic self called "The Blonde" emerges, preceding Sybil's final integration into a single, whole individual with full knowledge of her past and present life. Reception. The book had an initial print run of 400,000. [1] The book is believed by Mark Pendergrast and Joan Acocella to have established the template for the later upsurge in the diagnoses of dissociative identity disorders. [2] [3] Audiotapes of recorded conversations between Schreiber and Wilbur were examined by Herbert Spiegel and later by John Jay College of Criminal Justice academic Robert W. Rieber. Both professionals concluded that Wilbur suggested multiple personalities to her client, whom they saw as a simple hysteric. Their "smoking gun" proof of this claim is a session tape in which Wilbur is heard describing to Mason the personalities she has already seen Mason exhibit. Spiegel and Rieber also claim that Wilbur and Schreiber fabricated most of the book, which is not a psychiatric case history as would appear in a peer-reviewed journal but a fictionalized narrative. Many details of the real case were changed or removed to protect Mason's privacy. [4] Critics of Spiegel and Rieber's "revelation" ask why they waited until after Schreiber, Wilbur and Mason were all dead before revealing the tapes, which Spiegel supposedly had in his possession all along. [5] A review of Rieber's book Bifurcation of the Self by Mark Lawrence states that Rieber repeatedly distorted the evidence and left out a number of important facts about Mason's case, in order to advance his case against the validity of the diagnosis. [6] Patrick Suraci, author of SYBIL in her own words , was personally acquainted with Shirley Mason and is still in touch with members of her family, criticizes Spiegel for what he terms unethical behavior in withholding the tapes. Spiegel also claimed to have made films of himself hypnotizing Mason, supposedly proving that Wilbur had "implanted false memories" in her mind, but when Suraci asked to see the films Spiegel said he had lost them. [7] [8] The case remains controversial, as Wilbur's psychiatric files were apparently destroyed upon her death, [9] and Mason is also deceased. In 2011, journalist Debbie Nathan published a detailed exposé, Sybil Exposed , in which she claims that Wilbur, Mason and Schreiber knowingly perpetrated a fraud in order to create a "Sybil, Inc." business, selling T-shirts, stickers, board games and other paraphernalia. Much of Nathan's book repeats material already covered in the original Sybil , including a 1958 letter in which Mason spoke about making up the "alters" for attention and excitement. In Sybil , this letter was interpreted as an attempt to put difficult, painful therapy on hold. [10] Nathan claims Schreiber became aware of Mason and her alleged past, writing Sybil based on stories coaxed from her during therapy, and that this case created an "industry" of . [11] [12] Nathan's writing and her research methods have been publicly criticized by Suraci and by Mason's family. In 2013, artist-journalist Nancy Preston published After Sybil , a personal memoir which includes facsimile reproductions of Mason's personal letters to her, along with color plates of her paintings. According to Preston, Mason taught art at Ohio's Rio Grande College, where Preston was a student. The two became close friends and corresponded until a few days before Mason's death. In the letters, Mason confirmed that she had had multiple personalities. [9] Books on Dissociative Identity Disorder. MUST HAVES for People, Friends and Relatives with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) Featured Book. " As if It Didn't Happen: A Memoir of Abuse, Multiple Personalities and Hope" by Maggie Claire buy the book. Author Maggie Claire was a guest on the HealthyPlace TV show. She talked about the long-term impact of being sexually abused as a child. Becoming One: A Story of Triumph Over Multiple Personality Disorder by Sarah E. Olson buy the book. Sarah E. Olson was interviewed by HealthyPlace to talk about her Dissociative Identity Disorder. Switching Time: A Doctor's Harrowing Story of Treating a Woman with 17 Personalities by: Richard Baer buy the book. Reader Comment: "After reading Switching Time, I am not only convinced but am in awe of the complexity of the human ability to cope with horrific abuse." The Stranger In The Mirror by Marlene Steinberg, Maxine Schnall buy the book. Reader Comment: "It is extremely detailed and really helps to sort all of this out in a clear manner." The Myth of Sanity: Divided Consciousness and the Promise of Awareness By Martha Stout buy the book. Reader Comment: "Very interesting read and very informative on how we all disassociate. Really shows we all need to learn about ourselves." Breaking Free: My Life with Dissociative Identity Disorder By Herschel Walker, Jerry Mungadze (Foreword) buy the book. Reader Comment: "I am very moved by the great courage it took for Herschel Walker to write this book and disclose this deeply personal and difficult aspect of his life." Amongst Ourselves: A Self-Help Guide to Living With Dissociative Identity Disorder By Tracy, Ph.D. Alderman, Karen Marshall buy the book. Reader Comment: "We really enjoyed reading this book. It was insightful and well written. It is helpful for family, friends and individuals with DID." The Dissociative Identity Disorder Sourcebook By Deborah Bray Haddock buy the book. Reader Comment: "What it is, why it is, and what you can do about it. No individual personal stories. Just the facts. I found this book very helpful." The Haunted Self: Structural Dissociation and the Treatment of Chronic Traumatization (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology) By Onno van der Hart, Ellert R. S. Nijenhuis, Kathy Steele buy the book. Reader Comment: "It gives clarity into this very complex dimensions of inner and outer lives of chronically traumatized individuals." Got Parts? An Insider's Guide to Managing Life Successfully with Dissociative Identity Disorder (New Horizons in Therapy) By A.T.W. buy the book. Reader Comment: "What "Got Parts?" gives you is a day to day manual for getting through life with DID." After Sybil. From the Letters of Shirley Mason by Nancy L. Preston buy the book. Shirley Mason, Sybil, writes to her friend about life after the integration of her sixteen personalities. Photos, quotes, art recount Shirley's story from 1970 to 1998. Unmasking Sybil. THE LAST DAY OF SHIRLEY Ardell Mason's remarkable life was peaceful. She was at home, in the two-story gray bungalow on Henry Clay Boulevard in Lexington, Ky., that had been her refuge for 25 years. Her breast cancer had spread quickly, but she didn't like doctors and hated hospitals even more. So her friend Roberta Guy arranged for nurses to provide round-the-clock care. On Feb. 26, 1998, Mason must have realized time was short; she asked for Guy, who lived just a 10-minute drive away. But by the time her friend pulled up, it was too late. Mason was dead. A few weeks earlier, Mason had finally divulged her extraordinary secret, confirming what Guy had long suspected: the 75-year-old former college art teacher was the world's most famous psychiatric patient--the real-life model for ""Sybil,'' journalist Flora Rheta Schreiber's 1973 best seller about a woman so abused as a child that she developed 16 personalities, including women with English accents and two boys. The book was made into a 1976 TV movie starring Sally Field and was largely responsible for popularizing multiple-personality disorder--until then, a rare diagnosis. Now, a year after Mason's death, the case is once again in the spotlight with three documentaries and at least as many books in the works. Some people close to Schreiber (who died in 1988), Mason and the psychiatrist who treated her, Cornelia Wilbur, now question the authenticity of Mason's condition. Before the publication of ""Sybil,'' there were only about 75 reported cases of MPD; in the 25 years since, there have been, by one expert's estimation, 40,000 diagnoses, almost all in North America. The book had the blessing of great timing: it hit the public consciousness in the ascending days of feminism, when people were also beginning to grow concerned about child abuse. A quarter century later, by the time Mason lay dying in her bungalow, many experts were disputing the validity of the multiple-personality diagnosis and blaming the book for spawning a bogus industry of therapists who specialize in hidden abuse. At the same time, psychiatric historians and researchers have now begun to try to sort out the facts of the case that started it all. Mason was raised in the small, conservative town of Dodge Center, Minn., the only child of Mattie and Walter Mason, a hardware-store clerk and carpenter; both were strictly observant Seventh-Day Adventists. When ""Sybil'' came out, dozens of the town's 2,000 residents recognized Mason. ""Everything just fit--the description of her mother, of the town, of the old brick schoolhouse kitty-corner from her house,'' says Wendell Nelson, 58, an antiques dealer. Residents recall a somewhat withdrawn, slender girl with a talent for painting. Betty Borst Christensen, 76, grew up across the street from the Masons. ""Shirley was very protected,'' Christensen recalls. ""Her mother didn't let her do much.'' Mason's second- grade teacher, Frances Abbott, now 93, remembers that Mattie Mason would grab Shirley's hand ""in a vise lock'' when they crossed the street. ""Shirley couldn't get free even if she tried. She was a timid little soul always under Mother's care.'' In the book, Sybil's mother subjects her to horrifying abuse; many people in Dodge Center say Mattie (""Hattie'' in the book) was bizarre. ""She had a witchlike laugh,'' recalls Christensen. ""She didn't laugh much, but when she did, it was like a screech.'' Christensen remembers the mother walking around after dark, looking in the neighbors' windows. She apparently had once been diagnosed as schizophrenic. Still, no one claims any direct knowledge of the sexual and physical abuse described in the book. ""There is strong evidence that [the worst abuse in the book] could not have happened,'' says Peter J. Swales, the historian who first identified Mason as Sybil. In 1941 Mason left for what is now called Minnesota State University at Mankato, 60 miles away. She seemed to be on the fast track, says Dan Houlihan, a psychology professor at the school who has studied the case, and she's featured prominently in yearbooks for her first two years. Then she apparently suffered some kind of breakdown and didn't graduate until 1949. She met Wilbur, the psychiatrist, in Omaha after another such collapse; in the early 1950s she moved to New York, where Wilbur then lived, and became her patient. Their therapeutic relationship lasted more than a decade. In the book, the story has a happy ending, with a dramatic breakthrough in 1965 that allows a fully integrated Sybil to emerge ready to begin an independent life. The real story is more complicated. According to Swales, the therapy ended in 1965 in part because Wilbur had decided to take a job outside New York. Mason did go on to hold several jobs, but she never strayed far from her former therapist. At that point, ""Wilbur and Shirley virtually merge,'' Swales says. ""She won't make a decision without Wilbur.'' Mason never married and had no children. There's no doubt that Mason had very serious emotional problems, but how true was her story? She once recanted her allegations of abuse in a letter to Wilbur in the 1950s during therapy in New York--although Wilbur believed the letter simply indicated her patient was in denial. She never recanted again; in fact, Mason told a psychiatrist friend just months before her death that ""every word in the book is true.'' But even if Mason was abused, did she really split into 16 identities, which Wilbur claimed to be able to summon at will? Some researchers say that Mason probably wasn't a ""multiple'' before she met Wilbur. A psychiatrist who worked with the patient he will refer to only as Sybil says that she was a ""brilliant hysteric,'' highly hypnotizable and extremely suggestible. The doctor, Herbert Spiegel, still in private practice in New York, believes Sybil adopted personalities ""suggested'' by Wilbur as part of the therapy, which depended upon hypnosis and heavy doses of sodium pentothal. Eager to be helpful, Mason read the psychiatric literature on MPD, including ""The Three Faces of Eve.'' ""She didn't start out a spontaneous multiple, but she took on the clinical characteristics of one through the interaction with her therapist,'' Spiegel says, adding, ""It was nothing fraudulent. They really believed this.'' Skeptics argue that in the dance of psychoanalysis between patient and doctor a kind of mutual delusion, a folie A deux, can develop. The full truth may not be known until Wilbur's archives are opened in 2005. Whatever the course of the therapy, it does appear to have helped Mason. In 1973, thanks to profits from the book, in which all three women-- author, psychiatrist, patient--shared, she moved to Lexington, where Wilbur had settled to teach at the University of Kentucky. Her home was near Wilbur's grander mansion. Sometime in 1990, Wilbur diagnosed Mason with breast cancer. Because of her fear of hospitals, she decided against treatment. The disease went into remission, but the next year Wilbur developed Parkinson's. Now Mason cared for her former therapist, moving in to do it. Guy worked for a nursing agency and was hired to help. Eventually all three became close, and Guy joined in crossword puzzles and the Scrabble games that Mason and Wilbur loved to play. From time to time, other people working in the house would notice the many copies of ""Sybil'' in the library and speculate that Mason was the patient. They quickly lost their jobs. After Wilbur died in 1992, leaving her former patient $25,000 and all ""Sybil'' royalties, Mason became even more reclusive. She had long since cut off contact with most of her old friends and her family. Guy took on her banking and shopping at a health- food store because Mason was a vegetarian. In her last few years, Guy says, Mason spent most of her time taking care of her cats, gardening and painting until arthritis made it too difficult to hold a brush. Despite painful memories of the repressive church in Minnesota, she remained devoted to her Seventh-Day Adventist faith. ""She was happy,'' Guy says. In the summer of 1997, the cancer came back. Once again Mason declined medical treatment, telling Guy she had had ""enough trauma in her life.'' She began giving away her books and paintings to friends and shredding her personal papers. She left most of the rest of her estate to a Seventh-Day Adventist TV minister. ""She was not afraid of dying,'' Guy says. Psychiatrist Leah Dickstein, a friend of Wilbur's and Mason's, spoke with her near the end. ""She said she was at a point where she had forgiven her mother. She let that anger go.'' SHIRLEY MASON WAS THE REAL woman behind the famous book and TV movie ""Sybil.'' Her alter egos: SYBIL PAINTINGS SHOWN IN SARASOTA. Sybil portrayed by Salley Field Shirley Ardell Mason died in Lexington, Kentucky in 1998. A successful artist, she was also known by another, much more famous name: that of Sybil, an American psychiatric patient described as having multiple personality disorder, now called dissociative identity disorder. In 1973, a book was written by Flora Rheta Schreiber in collaboration with Dr. Cornelia Wilbur . Entitled Sybil, this book quickly garnered international interest and scrutiny and went on to become a best seller. A movie by the same title was released in 1976 starring Sally Field as Sybil and as Dr. Wilbur. The role earned an Emmy Award for Sally Field. This film was remade in 2007 starring and Tammy Blanchard. Many of the “Hidden Paintings” were used in that movie. (“Hidden Paintings” were the art works created by Ms. Mason’s alternate “selves.”) Both the book and the two films used the pseudonym Sybil Isabel Dorsett to protect Mason’s identity. Why is the story of Sybil so compelling? It is a tale of a human spirit who survived unimaginable hardship. Shirley Ardell Mason was born in Minnesota on January 25, 1923, to a mother who was deeply sadistic and disturbed, and possibly schizophrenic. From the moment of birth Shirley was periodically subjected to horrific sexual abuse. It is believed that the child’s young mind went into protective mode and split into various dissociative states or “personalities” to absorb the experience and push away things that were far too painful to remember. In the early 1950’s, Ms. Mason was a substitute teacher and a student at who had long suffered from blackouts and emotional breakdowns. In 1954, she entered psychotherapy with Cornelia B. Wilbur, a Freudian psychiatrist. These sessions were to form the basis of the book. During her 11-year analysis, Ms. Mason was identified as having sixteen distinct personalities. Through the herculean efforts of Dr. Wilbur and the brave determination of her emotionally damaged patient, all sixteen selves ultimately integrated into one. Shirley Ardell Mason emerged from therapy in 1965, finally able to recall her early life and feelings. After Ms. Mason’s death at the age of 75 in 1998, her Kentucky home and its contents were prepared for auction. As the auctioneer was clearing out the house, his wife came across a closet containing stacks of National Geographic magazines. Behind these magazines which were boxes of art, letters, and other personal effects—treasures Ms. Mason had hidden from sight for nearly a quarter of a century. The owner of a local frame shop, a man by the name of Jim Ballard, attended that auction. He had heard about these hidden boxes filled with Ms Mason’s paintings and drawings, and knew in an instant it was art he could frame and sell. With no preconceived notion of what the art was about, he bought the entire group of paintings sight unseen. He knew a bit about Sybil, of course, but now he went home to open the boxes, look at the art, and familiarize himself with both book and movie. The painting was entitled Aquatic Forms #1, Shirley A. Mason, but the title and her signature was covered by tape. It is thought that Ms. Mason did this in order to conceal her identity. One hundred and three paintings were in Mr. Ballard’s original cache. As he went through these boxes, he was surprised to find one of his pictures reprinted in the book. Called Blue Is the Color of Love , this painting had brown packing tape glued over the artist’s signature. Further research was to tell Mr. Ballard that Ms. Mason had refused to put her name to any piece of art she did not recognize as her own. (It had been a disturbingly frequent occurrence for Ms. Mason to enter her studio and find work on the easel of which she had no conscious memory. It was assumed that these unsigned paintings in the collection were the work of her alternate “selves”.) Indeed, long before undergoing psychotherapy, Ms. Mason had written an editorial for the student paper at Mankata State University, where she was majoring in art. In this lengthy opinion piece, she passionately stated that no artist should ever put their name on any work or creation that was not their own. Other students found this subject a little odd, but to Ms. Mason, it was a serious issue. As Mr. Ballard dug though the boxes, he repeatedly found paintings and drawings with no artist signature whatsoever. Mr. Ballard According to Nancy Preston, author of Life After Sybil…From the Words of Shirley Mason, this title was probably used by Shirley and her alternates more than once as they referred to various pieces of their art. One of the alternates called Mary, named after Miss Masons grandmother, referred to her first watercolor as Blue is the color of love. realized that Ms. Mason did not wish to be connected to any art created by her other selves. She was reluctant, however, to give these pieces up. She had carefully stored these “Hidden Paintings” in the back of her closet until they were discovered in 1998. The paintings tell an extraordinary story, for Ms. Mason had spent her lifetime as a professional artist. Increasingly, as she underwent treatment, she was encouraged to use art as therapy, unlocking buried memories and feelings. For example, in a 1967 painting entitled Mother and Child , psychiatrists and art critics alike concluded it represented Shirley Mason’s final peace and closure with her abusive mother who had died nearly two decades earlier. Inspired by her traumatic childhood, artist Shirley Ardell Mason produced an extraordinary body of work. Equally fascinating are the back stories which accompany each individual piece of art. Today, the remaining 76 pieces discovered by Jim Ballard are all offered for sale at the Commodity Exchange at 1918 Bay Road in Sarasota. They can be viewed from 9-4 on M-F, and from 9-12 on Saturday. Mr. Ballard can be reached by cell at 859.536.266. Dick Dombro’s phone is 941.954.1488. Mr. Dombro is the owner of Commodity Exchange, which specializes in Antiques and Collectibles.