Featured Artist Linda Stelling

Painter Linda Stelling shares her diverse background, and presents a stunning portfolio of dreamlike abstracts created in colorful layers. See her website to view more of her work.

 

 

How to explain one’s self and one’s journey as an artist is a daunting thing. It’s pretty much all been said before, but each voice is a solo.

 

 

I was brought up in an artistically rich family. My grandfather, although poor, painted frescos in churches which were razed for new construction. Both my father and mother were each incredibly creative. My father was an amazing craftsman and musician, and my mother a brilliant colorist with flowers. The rest of my extended family were symphony musicians and one was a  nationally recognized illustrator. Plain and simple, the die was cast.

 

 

After art school, where I studied ceramic sculpture and painting, my first solo journey began in an old trolley car station that froze solid in winter. Trying to create art wearing mittens was a unique challenge to say the least. From there I advanced to a beautiful old woolen mill that afforded me enough room to have both a studio and gallery. It was here that I was a part of a community of working artists with the mindset to support themselves by opening their doors to the public. It was a great experience, but I dreamed of warmer weather.

 

 

I moved to Los Angeles thinking I was talented and sufficiently educated enough to compete in the LA art world. I was immediately hired as an commissioned artist for a company that produced original work for galleries and prints for hotels and public spaces. This proved to be an experiment in social and financial endurance. My $5 an hour paychecks didn’t go very far. Not on this coast.

 

 

I began studying with everyone I could to gain a perspective on how I could survive being an artist. For many years, I created large scale murals, specialty finishes and unique work for top name designers, commercial buildings and movie stars. I also taught art to adults and children.

 

 

Now I am in full throttle, working hard and straddling the midpoint of my career. I have invested myself in continuing the work I began as an abstract expressionist many years ago. I am fueled by my interest in color and the dream studies I have been exposed to for so long.

 

 

I no longer work for someone else’s constraints or for what I think someone might like. I use my layered experiences and passions to fulfill my life’s work. I am in the studio every day – and when I am not, I am planning and studying for the next work. Life is good.

 

Linda Stelling invites you to follow her on Instagram.

 

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