Meet Linda Wooters | Fine Artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Linda Wooters and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Linda, why did you pursue a creative career?
I really can’t remember a time when creating art was not a part of my life. After the tragic death of my mother when i was age of five, drawing became my refuge. I spent hours lost in sketching images of things around me. When I went off to college, I didn’t I intended to go into a creative field, but once I took my first art class I was hooked.

To help pay college tuition, I worked in retail designing window displays for stores. This was a time when retail store fronts were super creative and helped draw customers into the stores. I started my own visual merchandising business with clients in Pacific Design Center in Los Angeles and South Coast Plaza in Orange County. I was fortunate that one job led to another so I really didn’t have to pursue work. This gave me the confidence to begin a career as an entrepreneur. From this point on, I never had to work for anyone else.

After graduating with a Fine Arts degree at California State University, Long Beach in the mid-1980s, I continued with visual merchandising, traveling across the country expanding to trade show design and photo styling for product brochures. When my husband, who I met in college, started his own graphic design firm, I ended up joining him. Graphic design became the next phase of my creative life.

However, It doesn’t end there. We decided to raise a family. With three kids in tow, I took my creative pursuits to the classroom. I taught classes in hopes of instilling a love of the arts in young minds. I started the program “A Celebration for the The Arts” in conjunction with the Orange County Museum of Art at our public elementary school where we had weekend hands-on art fairs and an art gallery where each student at the school displayed an art piece. This was a big event and treated very much like a gallery opening. This was very rewarding because I heard much later that some of the students were so inspired by these early experiences that they went on to become artists themselves.

Now with children grown, my life is dedicated to my first love, the fine art of drawing and painting. My creativity came full circle with one pursuit leading to, and enhancing and contributing, to the next.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I am inspired by my love of the ocean, so I paint a lot of coastal scenes. The ocean and the atmosphere around it is ever changing, capturing that energy is what excites me as an artist. I try to capture elements of any landscape in its simplist forms. I approach the canvas with a will to play, exploring with loose gestures and color. I am looking for balance between realism and the abstract. When I start a painting I may have an idea where it might go but during the process the art takes a life of its own and it starts to tell me where it wants to go. This is where I get lost in the art and some wonderful surprises happen. While painting, I love the process of problem solving, pushing new ideas and techniques. Sometimes I make big mistakes and I end up messing up a painting but it’s always exciting whenever I work it out and come out the other end and finish the painting that I really like. I learn so much from that experience.

In the end, I hope that my art makes the viewer stop, ponder and reminisce about a time and place that brings them a feeling that is personal to them.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
There are so many wonderful places to visit in southern California, since I am a beach person, I would take them to one of my favorite, Newport Beach. The miles long flat sandy shoreline is great for walking while hunting for sea glass and watching surfers. There is also a boardwalk for riding beach cruisers that would take us down the peninsula to Newport and Balboa piers. We would stop at one of the many bars for a beer. Then we would cross the bay on a small car and pedestrian ferry and head to Balboa Island. This is such a quaint spot where we would walk along the edge of the entire island. It has a main street lined with more great spots to eat and fun little shops.

I would most definitely take them to my studio in Cannery Village where we would explore many of the other artist studios. This area has some good places to eat like Alta Coffee for breakfast or lunch. Bear Flag Fish is another great spot for fish tacos. For fine dining, I’d take them to the Cannery Restaurant or Blue Water Grill, both have delicious food and are situated on the bay for great water views. A short walk from my studio is another of my favorite spots, Lido Village, where nice retail stores and restaurants line the dock overlooking the water. From here, we would rent an electric boat and cruise the bay at sunset.

A short drive south down, is another one of my favorite beaches, Laguna Beach. We would spent a day in this charming boho, artistic town exploring art galleries and walking on the beach.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Besides my husband, children and some wonderful friends who are by biggest cheerleaders and who encouraged me to pursue my dream career in fine art, I belong to an artist group that has individual studios in the same building. We call ourselves the Cannery Artist Collective, @canneryartistcollective. Our building is in an area of Newport Beach called Cannery Village. This area has a rich nautical history. It’s the old Newport, rough around the edges and imperfect which draws creatives here. As a group, we have we support and encourage one another. Along with having open studio events, we also have monthly dinners in our adjacent courtyard where we share ideas, inspire each other and just laugh. Though our artistic styles are very different, the challenges we all face are the same. As artists, we can be our worst critics. It’s great to belong to a group you know you can count on, to push you forward when you are ready to give up and to share experience with.

Website: https://www.lindawooters.com

Instagram: @lindawootersfineart

Image Credits
www.emilydavisphotograpy.com