Meet the Artist: Linda Boatman

Northern Neck artist Linda Boatman grew up on the family farm in Iowa.  Her education began in one-room schools.  In third grade, an aptitude test administered by the County System showed she was most interested in art.   Linda wanted to find out if this was really true.  She started looking around for something to draw. There were many Simplicity pattern packets her mother used to sew clothing for her four daughters, with professional sketches on the fronts of the pattern packages.  She decided only these and the “Draw Me” ads in magazines were suitable for testing her own ability to draw.   Using pads of unlined typing paper and # 2 pencils, she carefully reproduced the drawings. Careful looking, no tracing! She sat in the middle of the farm field, testing her ability to draw the family farm buildings from a distance.  This was her first attempt at plein air drawing.  The concepts of drawing from life, en plein air, still life from set-ups, and drawing from the model were important, inherent choices from the very beginning.

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At that time, no art classes were taught in her high school.  She doodled  a lot in high school.

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Linda graduated from the University of Iowa in Iowa City, IA in 1969, earning a B. A. degree in Education and special education.  Her life was devoted to home and family for several years.

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Turning 30, she was ready to seriously explore her abilities in art-making.  An artist friend encouraged her to enroll in Roxanne Sexauer’s drawing class at the Iowa City Rec Center.  It was the right path.  In 1978, she received a “Best in Show” award from the Amateur Iowa Artists, a NFP for adult Iowa artists, for “Kitchen”, a contour drawing of her own kitchen, which hangs in her office today.

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Within a year or two, she enrolled at the University, majoring in art and art history.   The unique design classes taught by Professor Hu Hung Hsu, and life drawing classes taught by Professor Joseph Patrick provided equal area of emphasis.

Linda graduated from the School of Art and Art History in 1985, with an M. A.  Her studio thesis is etched and formed Plexiglas sculpture, now in the collection of the University of Iowa.  

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In 1995, Linda moved to Chicago, Illinois.  While in Chicago, she was an artist-member of the Palette and Chisel Academy of Fine Arts, located in an old mansion on North Dearborn Street in Chicago.  Her major exhibits were in Chicago.  She is a past-President of the Palette.

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At the P & C she studied painting.  Linda prefers to paint with oils, from life.  The Chicago Plein-Air Painters, various paint and drawing workshops and classes at the Palette, as well as a studio in the Coach house further developed her art-making skills.  Eventually she moved to a studio in the Fine Arts Building, on Michigan Avenue.

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In 2008, Linda moved to the Northern Neck of Virginia, where she lives today. 

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Linda’s commissions include fiber sculpture for the First Christian Church in Iowa City, Iowa, and landscape painting in Virginia.

Linda’s work has been enhanced and inspired by travels to Europe, China, Turkey, Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

TAG is a perfect place to show her work and have fun making art.