We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Linda Post. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Linda below.

Linda, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?

I was always the child daydreaming in the back of the classroom, drawing pictures instead of taking notes. Secret portraits of my classmates, fashion design, geometric forms, even making up illustrated stories and books. I was a good student despite my general lack of attention. My public high school didn’t give college-bound students the option of taking art classes – it was considered a “trade”. I enrolled in occasional private art classes, and did attend summer school for art one year. Heading into college I was, basically, self-taught as an artist.

Art was not taken very seriously in the University I attended – art classes were held in the bottom of the football stadium, and then in an off-campus house. There were just a few art professors, and they couldn’t teach me anything I wanted to know. That’s why I became a Psychology major, with a Studio Art minor. I didn’t want to pursue a graduate degree in psychology, so I decided to become certified as an art teacher. I had very few of the required practical art courses, given the lack of resources at my college. One of the courses I took for certification was printmaking, at the well-respected art school across town. It was a revelation for me. The professor encouraged my enthusiasm and allowed me, a part-time student, to spend as much time as I wanted in the printmaking studio. Basically, all my waking hours.

I became a printmaker. But I also had to earn a living. My husband and I married while we were still in school. We became substitute teachers for a while as we moved around (which informed me that I didn’t really like teaching kids) and then started a craft business together. It was very successful (relatively, for the arts) and we did that together until I was about 30 years old. During that time, I had started making figurative sculpture and returned to printmaking, teaching myself how to make monotypes. I had my first solo exhibit in New York City with monotypes when I was 34.

Linda, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

“I make paintings of powerful women, the sea, mysterious encounters, and uncommon places. My paintings are saturated with rich, dense color. They describe narratives and use images that are part of our collective history, delving into our lives, dreams and memories. They examine the nature of womanhood, the psychology of transition, and the conjunction of dreaming and waking states.” – Linda Post

Post’s work has been included in solo and group exhibitions in museums and galleries throughout the country and reside in many important public and private collections. Reviews, photo essays, and images of her work have been published in numerous national and regional publications and are included in the Lunar Codex: A Time Capsule of Human Creativity on the Moon.

Post has another aspect to her creative career. She and her husband are Founding Directors of the Paradise City Arts Festivals, award-winning juried shows of fine craft, painting, and sculpture in the Northeast US. They have created marketing opportunities, new audiences, and individual mentoring for artists for thirty years. During that time, Post has always maintained a studio and continued along her own personal artistic path.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

I am a visual storyteller. In all of my work, women are the dominant elements. My goal is not to idealize them in any way, but to portray each woman’s individuality, her power, her connection to other women and to the world. I usually paint the women I know, sometimes using them as models as they grow from adolescence into womanhood. The narratives often place together women and girls who have never met, in physical environments where they have never been. There is a dreamlike aspect to my paintings, a surreal confluence of elements that feels very real.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

There is a rumor out there that in order for an artist to become successful, they should stick to one medium and style.
My preferred mediums have changed over time, which has had an obvious influence on my style. My original background is in printmaking, but I have worked extensively in many art fields. Sculpture showed me how to render the figure in three dimensions. Printmaking led to my experimental work in monotypes, which was my favorite medium for a long time and the focus of my first solo exhibit in New York City, reviewed by John Russell in the NY Times. The monotypes were of figures in loosely painted interiors. When the rooms developed windows, my figures started dancing, leaping, and moving outside.

I first began to work in pastels using the ghost images of the monotypes, but then the pastels grew much larger. Once the scale of my work became problematic in that medium, I changed to oil paint on canvas and panels.

I always work in series, and each successive series emerges from the one before it. Regardless of medium or subject matter, everything that comes out of my studio has always been very recognizable as my personal vision and palette.

I have practiced art my whole life without formal training or a fine art degree. My undergraduate studies in Psychology actually had a profound visual and narrative effect on my painting of the figure, relationships, and environments. Although I am not a classically trained artist, my skills in rendering the figure were hard-earned through practice. I think I spent ten years just becoming adept at drawing hands! It’s my personal philosophy that the long process of discovery in being self-taught leads to a unique form of expression – my work really doesn’t look like anyone else’s.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.lhpost.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lhpost_art/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LindaPostArt/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lhpost-art/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzMA9ZMUbW4OjDMUh6nisUg
• Other: Virtual Exhibition: https://assets.artplacer.com/virtual-exhibitions/?i=18681

Image Credits

Stephen Petegorsky