Marin Footbridge
9 x 12

Mustard Walkway, The Laguna
9 x 12

My background:

I was born on March 3, 1945 in Eureka, California, and my maiden name was Linda Louise Larsen. I spent my younger years in Chicago and nearby cities, and in Summit, New Jersey and Elmhurst, Illinois for junior high and high school. I was always drawing, from my earliest years, and I remember vividly having to hide this from teachers and occasionally getting caught at it. I thought that I would be a professional fine artist in New York City. But from doing research I became convinced that women were then not wanted, and not frequently successful, at reaching the upper levels of fine art and commercial art. This was the period after WWII when "Rosie the Riveter" was expected to return to being only a homemaker, and very few career opportunities were offered to women.

While attending Summit High in New Jersey, and at York Community High in Elmhurst, Illinois, I had won competitions, first painting with water media in a realistic vein. I began oil painting in high school, moving from abstract-influenced landscapes into colorful abstract expressionism. One of my paintings, Slide, was included in a juried exhibition at the University of Wisconsin (circa 1964) while I was an undergraduate there. (A few of my abstract paintings from the 60's and 70's are pictured above.) I moved to Berkeley, California, in 1967, and continued painting while employed at UC, working as a secretary until the employment landscape started to change. I was admitted to Boalt Hall School of Law at UC Berkeley in 1973 for one of the first classes with a high percentage of women, the Class of 1976. Once I became a San Francisco attorney with a hectic practice, it was difficult to fit in oil painting. But I promised myself to get back to oil painting - and I did. I collected art in the meantime, as did the law firms I was associated with, Phelan Stuppi Sorensen & McQuaid, then Howard Rice Nemerovski Canady Falk & Rabkin, and then Feldman Waldman & Kline. I am still actively engaged in the practice of law, as "Of Counsel" to Stromsheim & Associates in San Francisco, although on a reduced schedule.

For the past several years my husband Dan Rohlfing and I have lived in Bodega Bay, California, and we devote a substantial portion of our time to art. This includes our Bodega Bay Heritage Gallery, the fine art gallery that specializes in Early California Art. I also belong to art organizations, know and work with other California painters, and enjoy workshop participation. The beautiful landscapes of Sonoma County inspire me. I also take my paints to Hawaii.

Artist's statement:

My personal expression through my landscape paintings is not the quick "impression"-capture pursued by the plein air or colorist painters, but instead a slower crafting of my vision based on realism but with a stylistic "difference." For example, I do not view the structures of the land as static, but instead as organic shapes that might ripple or gallop away, if only as a result of geologic time. I like to capture the depth of a scene as if the viewer were soaring over it or moving around inside it. Design is paramount. Color conveys mood and nature's symphony. Contrasts of light and shadow are important for my selection of subjects, and I paint a complete base painting of shapes of light and dark before going back with the more subtle colors and textures of the finishing layers.

There is of course "nothing new under the Sun" and I am influenced by those who went before. Earlier movements that inform my works are the jugenstihl, art nouveau, arts & crafts, and even the psychedelic art movement of my own lifetime, as does the WPA/regionalism that was more often associated with watercolor. Although I admire many artists and many styles of painting, those who inspire me most closely in connection with what I hope to express include Ernest Martin Hennings 1886-1956, Marvin Cone 1891-1964, Thomas Hart Benton 1889-1964, and among California painters Ray Strong 1905-2006.

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