Carol Sims, 59, of Southbury, formerly of Newtown, died January 26 after a brief illness. Ms Sims joined the editorial staff of Antiques and The Arts Weekly, a Bee Publishing Co. publication, in 1999.Antiques and The Art Weekly after a stint at the Silvermine Guild Arts Center in New Canaan, where from 1993 to 1996 she acted as liaison between staff and the guild's 300 artist members. From 1984 to 1990, she worked for the innovative new publication Cook's Magazine. There she honed her skill as an advertising sales representative, one with special expertise in luxury-goods promotion.Antiques and The Arts Weekly, she contributed informed reports on the arts and antiques market. She conceived, developed, and sustained Antiques and The Arts Weekly's semiannual Gallery Guide. She took an avid interest in the creation of the paper's website and was eager to improve it with the latest technology.Candlewax, and published another book, Invasion of The Shrews, under the pen name Yuri Whiskerin. She also painted, exhibiting her work in several galleries before gradually devoting more time to writing.Antiques and The Arts Weekly. She radiated the belief that all was possible, a quality that inspired her many friends and colleagues.

Born in Los Angeles on June 18, 1957, to Barbara Ellen Tanner and Robert Alan Bailey, she moved with her family to St Louis, then Vail, Colo. She studied at Battle Mountain High School near Vail, where she experienced the intimacy and freedom of a class of only ten students. She subsequently earned a bachelor's degree in fine arts at the University of Colorado, which she attended on full scholarship.

In the first of many and varied professional endeavors, Ms Sims worked full-time as a ski instructor at the Vail Ski School, where she was RMSIA-certified. In off months, she was a greenskeeper at the nearby Beaver Creek Golf Course. In 1982, she married fellow ski instructor William J. Sims, Jr, who subsequently established a graphic design practice. The couple moved East to further their careers, living first in New York City before relocating to Connecticut.

Ms Sims joined

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Ms Sims never stopped creating. In what little free time she had, she completed an original book trilogy,

Colleagues recall the vitality, imagination, acute visual sense, and boundless enthusiasm that distinguished her work at

She was enormously proud of her husband and her two sons. William J. "Billy" Sims III, also an artist, earned degrees from the Massachusetts College of Art and the Chicago Arts Institute. Her younger son, Henry Alister Sims, graduated cum laude from Wheaton College in Norton, Mass.

In addition to her husband and sons, two brothers, Dan of St Louis and Brian of Leadville, Colo.; and mother-in-law Blanche L. Sims of Southbury survive Ms Sims. She was predeceased by her mother, father, stepfather Nathaniel McKelvey, and sister Kate Bailey.

Arrangements were private.