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Crab Apples and Salmon Pottery oil on board 5" x 7"

If you are interested in it, you may purchase it by clicking here.

I love walking through this old property. It's easy to imagine people scurrying about, carrying eggs, tilling soil, tending horses. "A working farm", I keep repeating to myself, wondering how it outlived its usefulness. I can imagine those folks working here, I just have to picture them in clothes worn by people 140 years ago. As I gaze up into the leaves of the old crabapple tree, now almost completely obscured by other trees crowding it, competing for their existence, I try to imagine what the land looked like all around this tree. Was it an open pasture then, was the tree standing there unobstructed? I like to think about someone else bending down and picking up the tiny golden apples as I do- over a century later, enjoying their beauty if not their usefulness for eating.

Beach Fruit oil on canvas 5" x 7"

sold

I painted these little round "fruit" and painted daiseys soon after I found them on the dunes as I returned from the beach in South Carolina's beautiful beach in Charleston. This painting is going off to its new home.

Little Gems

I usually paint my still lifes in a "natural" size, that is life size. I don't follow the trends of painting large. I find humongous fruit to be rather imposing, actually, hanging there on the wall. I want to say to it, "What makes you think you are so important!? Get back to your natural size!" No, it is just a trend, and one I think will pass. One that does not sync with my classical training. You have heard the expression, when you want someone's attention, whisper. I have learned that far more effective than super-sizing art is to control color and light, keeping objects and people at their natural size. Another way of saying it is to limit color, and light. Focus it. One of the reasons much of my work has much chiaroscuro, the dramatic contrasts of light and dark, objects dissolving mysteriously into the background, is because of my love of catching someone's attention with a whisper. A strong draw. See Copper and Chrysanthemums below, in my first log.

When you go into the Metropolitan Museum, and you find yourself nearing the Rembrandt's, do you not find yourself absolutely drawn to them, causing you to cross a gallery room to get to them? It is because of his highly effective use of illuminating the objects and the faces in his work. As though they are illumined from within.

A project in which I have found myself involved is the painting of even smaller than life-size works. Can I still make effective still lifes in very small sizes? Can I do it in a lighter key? Some of my work can be seen now in these new and very affordable sizes on Ebay. Go to http://www.ebay.com/ and type in daily painting a day. You will see me there. The painting of this Fiesta piece I own will be coming up, soon, perhaps right after this log. Also you will see a piece there now, at this writing, I am calling Crab Apples and Salmon Pottery. (Click on title)

There is no end to the wonderful subjects found on my farm to include in one of these tiny paintings I am calling Little Gems.

Next log, I will return to Stories From the City.

57th street

The Queen Peony 7" x 9" oil on board

All paintings available for sale
linannemisja@gmail.com
airnlight@yahoo.com


Living in New York was a nourishing experience. I loved the vital, lively, teeming-with-brilliant-ideas New Yorkers. I seemed to just sync with the creative vivacity. I wanted it all to osmose into my being. The people of New York are wonderful. I remained in NYC for 12 years. One of my favorite memories remains the times classes finished up, and I had to return back to my apartment with a fresh painting in tow. I used to get a seat on the bus (when possible) and would turn the painting around subtly, so the bus riders around me could see it.



I told myself, they must think I have to turn it around so paint doesn't get on me, surely they don't suspect I want them to see it. Gah, it seems so dumb to me now. I remember wanting people to see my work. Any raising of the eyebrow was a little thrill. A comment was not really expected, but looks were enough.

Well, I guess it is natural to want people's reactions to your work.

Another fond memory, returning home from class: I was usually pretty well spattered with paint, in old jeans, hair a mess. If I felt like walking across 57th, instead of hopping the bus right away, I'd sometimes stop into the shops. I just loved the reaction I'd get going into the ever exclusive ones. The sales lady would eye me up and down, and haughtily ask me if she could help me. I wanted to tell her, "I am so much more than what you see here, lady. If only you knew, I am a painter. Ha, so there."

Proud to be a painter? Well, that's good I guess. Maybe I needed to think that way. Those times were so uncertain.

I did enter one gallery on 57th Street. I was told by friends I ought to have my work there. The gallery owner barely looked at my pieces and said, "Oh, honey, you're a dime a dozen." Thanks a lot. That stung. That comment remains with me, 20 some years later. I wanted to tell him, "But, but, I am in some very good galleries". Alas, I was tongue tied. One of the gallery owners who did take me on admonished that young painter one day. I thought I knew everything about the world of art, and I was arrogant- what with the comments from artist friends always swirling around my head about art that was no good. I actually critiqued the art that was hanging on the wall on the gallery who had just signed me on. He was aghast, but, kindly reminded me that the Lacks were only some of the best painters this country had ever seen. I never heard of any Lacks. I only thought the art was bad, and I made mention of it. The diplomacy with which I was gifted............sheesh. I somehow knew I had committed a gaff. Happily that gallery owner was more mature than I.

I used to walk with such an energy all along 57th. I sighed as I imagined the amazing music filling the chamber of Carnegie Hall across the street. I wondered often what it would be like to lunch at the Russian Tea Room. It was fun to catch visitors calling it The Carnegie Hall. Pssst, we just say Carnegie Hall. I paused, wondering about how hard it must have been to do the work of the Meter Maids (as we called them then). What a job, and then I'd think about those getting tickets, better feel worse for them. Meter Maids have a good job, these guys are going to have to pay a little ticket. Every time I would pass Calvary Baptist Church, I would be reminded of the story the Pastor told one time of a woman bending down to help a "street person" right in front of the church. She was wearing a fur. I know the story was a good one, although I don't remember the details, people helping those less unfortunate, but I always felt critical of it. I had such a visual image of the woman in the fur, helping the poor person. Maybe the woman was the one who needed help. Maybe. Maybe I was just resentful of someone who could wear expensive clothes. I was an artist, living in my size 7 faded, high rise jeans.

When it was a clear, beautful day, and I chose to walk most of the way home to the East Side, I loved watching people along my route. I wanted them to stop, and let me paint them. That desire to paint the human form would not become fulfilled until many years later. Not in the full way I wanted it to.

I concentrated on still life, mostly. I did paint the model at the ASL, but my passion was the still life. I adored the energized peace in a still life. I do yet today. I love the tranquilty one can capture of humble objects sitting nonchalantly on an antique pastel quilt, softened with the patina of age.

See above, Queen Peony

back to the story of my first years in New York

The Prince oil on board 12" x 16"

Paintings Available for sale

linannemisja@gmail.com

airnlight@yahoo.com

So, back to the "story"- how I became an artist. I moved to the city of NY, and I studied there at the Art Student's League. I enjoyed the instruction of Goodbread, Teply, Jacobs, and a few others. But my mentor became David A. Leffel. I still have my notes from those days. I dated everything and I discovered as I reread everything that it took about 16 months studying with David before I landed my first gallery. I continued to study with him, part time and full time for six years. A friend of mine, who is an excellent sculptress introduced me to the folks at The Nelson Rockefellar Gallery, right there in the best spot in New York an artist could wish for to land a gallery. They took me on immediately and after some months also showed my work



in their Minneapolis gallery. It is a difficult transition, student to working artist. Difficult because your skin hurts from all the pinching you do to let you know it is real. The student mindset has to make its switch to the professional mindset. Ok, it is a fun transition.

After enjoying some time as a Professional Fine Artist, I began to get involved in the art clubs New York has to offer. I was hanging a show one day at the Salmagundi Club, which houses the activities of the American Artist's Professional League, when a board member asked me if I would like to become a member of the board. I was, frankly, astonished. The AAPL is one of the oldest and most prestigious art organizations in the country. Surely, he didn't mean me. Maybe they ask all the young people to come on board. I accepted and at the first meeting, I was absolutely amazed. The board was made up of the finest artists, elderly gentlemen and women, some younger in their 50's, but mostly septuagenarians and octogenarians. And me.

I learned so much from my time on the Board of Directors. I will remain forever grateful for the experience. The fine artists on that board were the example of integrity as we juried National Exhibitions. Soon, however, my New York experience would come to a close.

Introducing Lin

Let me introduce myself.




My artist's name is Linda Anne Misja.

My business is called L.A.M. Fine Art Studios. Mostly everyone just calls me Lin.


I have been a professional fine artist for many years. I have been painting in the traditional and time-honored Renaissance and Dutch Master methods since the first day I picked up a brush. They say your style is inside you. I do believe that.

I dreamed of learning how to paint like the Masters when I was just a young girl of 17. I could not believe how beautiful the paintings were of the 1500's in Italy. The Dutch Masters rocked that young girl's world. I lived in New Jersey at the time and something inside me said, "move to NYC, move to NYC...........". I wanted to learn to paint well but I was not sure it was possible to find anyone who taught in this manner, "not today," I thought, "in this 20th century?" Yet, something told me if it were possible at all to paint like a master I would find that person in NYC. After moving to the city, I eventually stumbled on the Art Student's League of New York. There, indeed did I find such a person. Amazing. I was so excited. I started intense study then-it felt so fufilling after one year fumbling around trying to find out how to paint at various schools, under various instructors. I was glued to the instruction of David A. Leffel for the next 6 years. One day, it seemed to me a day like any other, he raised his voice and said to me from across the room, "Linda, that's beautiful", in front of all the others students. David was reserved in his compliments, so his saying this to me in this manner carried a lot of weight.

I blushed and I began to wonder if I was ready to try for galleries.

Here is an example of my work. I will be adding many pieces for your interest and I will continue the story another day.

Copper and Crysanthemums oil on board 16" x 20"

I love the vibrancy of the orange and purple. Sometimes paintings just paint themselves. This was one of those. That doesn't always happen. Painters struggle, sometimes a painting takes a year of hard work, and sometimes it is finished in a session or two and the artist stands there, blinking, and wondering, "Did I just paint that?"