INTERVIEW WITH GERALDINE _ ENGLAND

INTERVIEW WITH GERALDINE

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1. Tell me about yourself…I am a person who  learned early that there are many different languages and because speaking was not one that I knew or used, I began using my inner mind language and the language of art. Humor was always there  or at least a questioning-ness about what, where, how and why! My mother gave me that gift of questioning and anarchy and my father gave me the gift of mystical absorption in the NOW!
2. I made art always and watched my grandmother make art instead of "suffer" and I watched my mother do the same...Mom painted and did not dwell on the realities of the shortcomings of life.  I loved that mentoring and always will. My dad gave me music, as did my mom, as they both played  instruments, Dad, and sang, Mom , in their band in the 30's and 40's.
   I am happy to say that I am working on a night-club performance, singing their songs...But as me, that is as a man, holding a puppet chicken. Cant wait.
3. I am most "alive" when I am performing and my teacher  Shri Brahmananda Saraswati told me once,  'LINDA, YOU MUST ALWAYS PERFORM." Give me an opportunity and I am HAPPY!

2. Do you have any eye catching scars? How did you get them? If no scars, any tattoos (planned)?

Good question because I have 3 scars on my right hand. One is from when I had my hand in the upper part of an opened trunk of our car, the trunk door was open , and my head and hand were looking in there. Someone was getting something out of the trunk, didn't "see' my head an dhand in there and slammed it down on both my hand and head!!!!!!!!!!!!!It was winter in the northeast so I had a big collar on my coat. The trunk came down on the collar and softened the blow but also  on my hand where I have a scar on the back.
SCAR 2 same hand: one day I was playing with a boy in the neighborhood and got mad at him, don't remember why. I was so mad I picked up a stone but instead of throwing it, I squeezed it so hard that it went into my hand at the center of the right palm. NOTE; both of these scars are at the same place that Jesus was nailed  to the cross.
SCAR 3; Last summer I was cleaning a floor at my friend's home and used the wrong soap in the water. It was slippery and I fell and hit the back of same right hand against a wood table and broke 2 metacarpal bones on this POOR RIGHT HAND!!!The fingers have not yet closed properly.
I am open for past life regression in exchange for ART/LIFE COUNSELING!!!!

3. Did you ever meet someone you admired or had wanted to meet for a long time? Who who who? Was it awesome or disappointing? In graduate school I had been sending things to EVA HESSE ...things about my shows, my art , cards telling her I liked her work etc.I continued to send her letters and cards. One night I was in bed with my husband to be and said to him, "Somebody has died, somebody has just died." And then the phone rang. I didn't answer and after a few more times of ringing and not answering, I picked up the phone and then put it down, disconnecting it. It rang again and I answered. Someone said, "Eva Hesse just died and I know she would want you to know".
4.  

4. What very good and/or very bad thing do you predict will happen in the future? FUTURE BAD:  Water, water water. Not  clean to drink and all over the land. FUTURE GOOD: WOMEN WOMEN WOMEN. Free, free free to be.
5.  

FUTURE

5. What is the best colour and what do you associate it with (e.g. cherry red, avocado green)?YELLOW-DORIS DAY

6. This year were you introduced to anything (music/film/food/art/whatevs) that you would recommend (or recommend avoiding)?LIVING LIKE AN ANCHORITE.

7. Do you have a signature drink? How is it made?Heat milk(oye, now I feel funny drinking real milk because of images of lactating mothers without their babies on FB. Babies are taken away so cows can give milk!!!!!!!!!!!!!Oye) So heat something like milk, whip it with a wand whipper add water and maybe make believe coffee. But the best is a creamy coffee drink with whipped cream!!!(Can u tell that I was allergic to cows milk as an infant and drank goat's milk because I wasn't breast fed?)
   The real best is putting warm milk and turmeric powder in my baby bottle and going to bed and sucking.

8. Do you have anything going round and round in your head like a song coming into your mind or a memory or have you noticed regularly saying some new phrase you've never said before? BEAUTY

9. Can you remember any dreams you had when you were a child? If so which one stands out?  DREAM in day , no night,was to run away to TEXAS  ride a horse and play DER ROSENKAVELIER Strauss waltz on my record player(before tape recorders).

10. What song (or music act) makes you dance?HINDU BHAJANS.

11. Reading your interview Mommy interview I wanted to know more about your role playing work and appropriation of Mother Theresa's image. Could you tell me a little about taking on elements of a well known person and whether afterwards this affects how you feel about yourself and your appearance? My teacher said, " You are not the body and mind!" If so, then I am everybody! Plus being others allows me to get out of me which is a wonderful experience. Actors know about this. I call it CREATIVE SCHIZOPHRENIA. I become each person for a reason: Mother Teresa because I was bent over with a neurological disorder; Paul McMahon because he loves so nicely; Bob Dylan because I look like him. If u go to you tube you can see me as  7 different people associated with the 7 chakras. Title of the tape is LEARNING TO TALK.

12. Is there anything additionally you would like to promote or tell people about?The DALI LAMA said that there are two many famous people and not enough people who are compassionate. I am listening to this message and trying to learn from him.

 

I am 72 and have done 9234487474 interviews. Your questions are fabbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb.

Thank you thank you thank you! Geraldine

INTERVIEWS WITH PATRICIA MALONEY AND MOIRA ROTH

INTERVIEWS WITH PATRICIA MALONEY  & MOIRA  ROTH

http://www.artpractical.com/column/women-in-performance-the-new-endurance-of-linda-mary-montano-part-1/

http://www.artpractical.com/column/women-in-performance-the-new-endurance-of-linda-mary-montano-part-2/

INTERVIEW: MONTANO WITH SHARON MARIANETTI LEEBER

SHARON INTERVIEWS LINDA ABOUT LIFE-ART

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpztfI-e_Vk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy3zrtukhrE&feature=youtu.be

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR TEACHERS OF PERFORMANCE ART: WRITE ANSWERS TO CLAIRE: CILAVEE@GMAIL.COM

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS for TEACHERS of PERFORMANCE ART FROM CLAIRE BARRETT:    CILAVEE@GMAIL.COM
1.
What is your definition, or a definition you most resonate with, of Performance Art?
2. 
Are you yourself a Performance Artist?
If so, please give some background information about your own creative practice.
If not, what context informs your teaching of performance art? (e.g. art history, philosophy, performance studies)
Please give some information about your area of expertise in relation to performance art.
3.
If you are an artist, would you say that your practice is pedagogical? Do you consider teaching as part of your own artistic practice, or is it something separate?
Please comment on this.
4.
As a teacher of performance art, who is your student body?
Is it academic or community based?
Please describe the setting(s) in which you teach (If academic, which department is your course under?) and who your students are.
5.
Do you find the institution in which you teach has a compatible agenda to your own pedagogy?
Please comment if you find this relevant. 
6.
Please give an example of your syllabus – goals and objectives and a timeline of your class schedule over a given time period (e.g. a semester or workshop series)
7.
Is there a specific emphasis, method or school of thought on which you base your pedagogy – or do you encompass a wide variety of methods?
Please describe your pedagogical influences.
8.
Do you include a (or number of) specific body-based movement method(s) in your pedagogy?
If so, please describe how you approach this aspect of your class.
9.
What kind of ratio would you say your course contains of theory and history to practice and action?
Are there ways you integrate them? Please describe.
10.
Is one of your objectives for students to create their own original work?
If so, how is this developed over the course of your timeline?
Do the students perform this work?
If so, please describe your production methods in staging student work.
11.
What would you say is distinctive about you as a teacher of performance art?
What do you bring to a class that is unique to you?
12.
Are there aspects of performance art that you would like to explore and develop further in your pedagogy?
If so, what are they and how do you envision introducing them in the future?
13.
Please give any other information or comments that you feel are pertinent to your work and pedagogy – or feel free to suggest questions that I have not addressed.
Thank you so much for your time and willingness to share your thoughts and experiences in this innovative field of work.
If you are interested in viewing my progress with this project, please visit my Transart student blog at: http://transartcebtransart.blogspot.com/ 
Claire Elizabeth Barratt – MFA 1 – Research project – Transart Institute

TEACHING PERFORMANCE ART: SEPTEMBER 2001

INTERVIEW, TEACHING PERFORMANCE ART.....SEPTEMBER, 2001


QUESTION:WHEN DID YOU FIRST BECOME INTERESTED IN TEACHING?

LINDA M MONTANO: Since 1966 I have been teaching art and have become  familiar with teaching on three levels:
1.Teaching sculpture and object making  at Catholic women's colleges
1966-1971
2. Teaching performance art itinerantly (like a nomad) with no administrative responsibilities in hundreds of places, 1971-1991
3.teaching performance art in a university while participating on committees, and in the life of academia, 1991-1998
Out of those three experiences, I prefer the visiting artist model since that better suits my skills, my personality and my style.
Q; WHAT IS YOUR STYLE?
LMM: I teach performatively, that is, what happens with people who spend time with me in the classroom is sometimes identical to  what happens in performances. The classroom is a laboratory for the creation of presence, community, structure, intimacy, analysis, information and transformation. That has always been my goal. When I wear my performance art teacher mask, I allow myself to engage the body, mind and spirit of those playing the role of student.  But the bottom line is----I must be engaged, attentive, having  a "good" time for the whole thing to work.
Q: THAT SOUNDS LIKE A THEATRE WORKSHOP TO ME. IS THERE A DIFFERENCE?
LMM: Videotaping pone of m classes would reveal that many of the activities look the same as those you would see in many other places. So what you are saying is true. But also, I'm convinced that fate puts us together  with certain people who can tolerate each other's style and this gives that group a chance to get  very high together, for lack of a better word. When they leave the lab/classroom, they adjust their methodologies to daily life and make that a performative dance.(See ART IN EVERYDAY LIFE, MONTANO 1980.)
Q:WHO WERE YOUR MENTORS?
LMM: Every spiritual teacher I've ever had especially my meditation Guru, Dr. R.S. Mishra as well as composer Pauline Oliveros and performance artist/teacher Eleanor Antin. All were holistic and were totally themselves when they taught. Plus, they had a ball!
Q: DESCRIBE A TYPICAL CLASS.
LMM: I start with the body: we might stretch to Indian Ragas, slow walk while accompanied by the TV news, or imitate geriatric courting birds . Addressing the physical first allows for instant trust, instant community,  and a change of focus from the stresses of everyday mind. Play silences the judge.
Then what follows is a sound exercise or what Pauline Oliveros  terms: Sonic Meditation. These sound journeys are effective ways to clear out  the debris of ego, worry, and make room for the authentic presentation of self later on in the class.
And for the soul, silence might  be "felt" or a chakra visualization offered , to deepen inner awareness.
None of these examples are set in concrete since all is based  on mood, weather, the day, and the needs/demands  of the group. Often we have left the room, gone to a stream and sat  the entire class. The bottom line is , HOW TO CREATE CREATIVE PRESENCE , ATTENTION AND TRUST SO  THAT STUDENTS CAN PERFORM  THEIR SECRETS OR LIES, THEIR AUTOBIOGRAPHIES OR CELEBRATIONS, THEIR CONCERNS OR OUTRAGEOUSNESS FOR EACH OTHER IN A HEALING/BENEFICIAL ENVIRONMENT.
Let's experiment now and do a fast, McDonald's  version of one of my classes. First, stretch your shoulders. Good. Feel your muscles breathe. Good make a sound. Disguise your voice and tell your own inner child something that you need  to hear. Now make an animal sound that sums up  your experience of the College  Art Association meetings. Now feel the texture of silence and breath for 30 seconds. Good.
Q: HOW DO YOU GRADE PERFORMANCE ART?
LMM: One of the reasons that I am not able to perform the role of professor is because I insist that excellence is not measured by ADCB, but by the ability to change, to feel and to charge brain waves via the creative exploration of autobiography as art. Sure, in some classes my students have written extensive heady and theoretical research papers on ritual, gender, the body, the purpose of  audience, the history of performance and these papers serve as a gradable object but I am still most facile and comfortable as a teacher when I don't have to serve as an arbiter or judge of another's excellence .Often I would say:
1.grade yourself at the end of the semester
2.or,"You start this class receiving an "A". And at the end of the semester,  I would say, "Do you feel that you deserve an "A?" If they say no, then I would comment, "Then do x number of hours of community service to compensate for any lack of effort you might have given your work."
3.or sometimes I would announce, "All of you are getting "A's" and from the shock of that gesture, the rest of the semester we would rock and roll in relief.
Why are grades so problematical? I think it's because performance art from it's inception was about the edge, the outside, the permission not to belong.
Performance artists teaching performance art in the academy have this great opportunity . They can give students :
permission to use both brains
permission to move from trance to analysis
permission to create critiques that heal and don't hurt
permission to clean up our acts in front of each other
permission to take the practice home and make daily LIFE, ART.


LINDA MARY MONTANO

FROM LINDA TO JILL: THE KINGSTON ART/LIFE INSTITUTE

FROM LINDA TO JILL: THE KINGSTON ART/LIFE INSTITUTE

Hi Linda!!

I finally found this email that you sent to me  - sorry I didn't notice it sooner! And thank you so much for all the information!

Wow, this is really happening! Annie wrote to me probably a few years ago about buying your building - and here it is - happening!

I hope you like my plans for the lovely building and if there is anything you are uncomfortable with (be sure to tell me!)

I would like to name call the building "Linda Montano's Art/Life Institute" and would like to create month-long residencies for Performance Artists to live in the space and work, think, relax, live. I only ask that they interact with the community and host a dinner before they leave for the people they have met. I also would like to host The Gray one on the first floor, perhaps once or twice a month? I'm not sure because I don't want to bother the resident artists too much, so we'll see how it goes.

Wow! This is wonderful and amazing! You are such a wonderful artist! and you have influenced so many people and we all respect you so much - I am really honored to know you, and I am truly amazed that I am somehow able to be a part of your additions to performance art and life.

Thank you so much Linda Montano!

We love you!

: )) Jill

DEAREST JILL

I could not be  HAPPIER having you and Hoke nurture the Art/Life Institute. And I share the same spirit of carefulness, hoping that the physical building is kind to you and becomes a friend who gives you ease and positive maintenance experiences.

You are my friend and daughter and I have such high regards for you and your vision and it is EXACTLY WHAT THE INSTITUTE NEEDS... Your loving care and concern and love.
In reading a Tibetan Buddhist text once, it was said, things are often INCARNATED LAMAS  come back to do more "seva" service and spiritual work.
I see THE ART/LIFE INSTITUTE as this, an incarnated holy being, beyond stuff and matter and building and materials.  A place that was empty when I bought it in 1989, and a place that I told my mother who had died a year before, "Mom, I don't know how to cry but I can sweat by putting all of my feelings for you into this abandoned building. I will make it a labor of love and healing."

So the building became a love nest, a performance space, a clinic, a meditation center, an oasis, a dreamland, a place where I made built in furniture and where Tehching Hsieh plastered the walls like sky, a place where I made sky in the bedrooms and worked on every inch of the physical body of the building, a place where I woke to my inner feeling-self,it was  a workshop center, a place where friends performed and rehearsed, a place where we danced and sang, a place where I retreated to and received healing treatments in and gave healings to others as well. It also became an ashram named after and dedicated to my second Mother and spiritual teacher, DR. ARUNA MEHTA. So on the back door is also a sign saying: THE ARUNAPREMA ASHRAM. I have not yet received an inner message to see if I need to bring that sign to Saugerties or not so I leave it and the guardian mask there, in the patio outside until I know what to do about them. I hope that is ok with you. I gift to you the two portraits from 14 YEARS OF LVING ART. And the brown lazy boy chair needs some cleaning but please keep that chair because it was my father's chair and has a very deep history which I will tell you some day. Thanks...It needs some TLC.
 For the past seven years, as I became a Eucharistic Minister at the Kingston Jail, meeting with women in the jail every Sunday for a service, I would stay at the ART/LIFE INSTITUTE.   I lived there as if going to camp, without water and heat and I LOVED LOVED LOVED every second of that...using a heating blanket on my bed and camping out like a nomad.

And then, I received the message that I had to do something with the ARCHIVE and found that I had 150 boxes of PAPERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!AND PERFORMANCE OBJECTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!AND ETC there, all of them nesting in various places . Without my even realizing it, the building became the relic-holder of my things. Once the archive went to NYU, the ART/LIFE INSTITUTE said, "We need to change our relationship, Linda. I am ready for something new." This was not easy for me because of our love-affair, but I had to honor my heart wishes and so now this new wonderful birth with you had happened.
I am filling you in on some history which is not chronological but I need to sketch this out as a goodbye-hello letter.
 Since 2002, it was  no longer my live-in  home because  I transferred to Saugerties to take care of my father for 7 years, 3 of them 24-7 in his home in Saugerties,  which I then stayed in when he died.
 Before that, during my 7 years at The University of Texas Austin, I would rent the Institute for the school year and then live there in the summer.
 Saugerties is NOW the place where I do early child family healing and somehow, although I have this LOVE AFFAIR with KINGSTON ART/LIFE INSTITUTE,  my karma is keeping me here in Saugerties, eventhough Kingston wd be so much easier because smaller, easier to  maintain etc.

But I listen to my inner language and so here it is:
as of today, February 28, 2015, and thanks to magical art-doula matchmaker, ANNIE SPRINKLE:

I DECLARE THAT 185 ABEEL STREET, THE ART/LIFE INSTITUTE  IS NOW IN THE LOVING HANDS OF
  ART FRIEND- PERFORMANCE ARTIST-  JILL  MCDERMID
 
AND IT WILL NOW BE KNOWN AS :
 
 THE LINDA MARY MONTANO: KINGSTON, ART/LIFE INSTITUTE     ( or something like that, whatever you think best)

 I totally appreciate and endorse and applaud and vote for and cant wait to experience your plans for this divine being  who has come back as a place that nurtures art and life via your caring and careful and loving vision and joy. I ask this BUILDING OF LOVE to be a good friend, function beautifully, play kindly with issues of water/sewer/snow ploughing/taxes so that she can continue to SHINE AND BLESS ALL WHO ENTER HER SACRED DOORS OR THINK OF HER DIVINE PRESENCE.
IN ART/LIFE/GRATITUDE,
Linda Mary Montano
February 28, 2015
THE SAUGERTIES ART/LIFE INSTITUTE  & TRANFIGURATION HOSPITAL

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PERFORMANCE ART STUDENTS TALK ABOUT MY TEACHING

I ASK QUESTIONS ABOUT MY TEACHING TO STUDENTS:

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DEAR MICHAEL, ALTON AND SHARON &RACHEL NYU  IS DOING A PANEL ON  MY  WORK KAREN FINLEY WILL TALK ABOUT ME AS  TEACHER CAN U EACH SAY A  HOW I DID IT ...WHICH I CAN SEND HER 1. HOW LINDA TEACHES 2 WHAT A CLASS WOULD LOOK LIKE 3 RESULT OF A CLASS 4 LINDAS REAL PURPOSE BEING WITH A GROUP OF PEOPLE SUCH GRATITUDE LINDA

:

        MICHAEL PARKES:

 

1. Linda teaches by provoking the student to recognize aspects within their history, lives, psyche, and human experience that affect who they are and which are reasons for which their established paradigms either help or hinder their lives. Through “art” as a framing of this process, Linda deliberately breaks down the construct of a persons life in order to make them express and act out pathways to liberation. Feats of bravery, vulnerability, and honesty lead to the release of long-held constraints, and Linda is not shy about asking the student to show this bravery.

 

2. Solely within an academic context it would appear to be a typical class...She has a scheduled time and room, a course description, and related credits or reward structure as prescribed by the academic system. It’s only as you participate and experience the class that you realize it is like no other class you have ever taken.  You are expected to “come as you are” but in an amplified manner. For those who are naturally open or prone to exposing deeper secrets about themselves per formatively, this is relatively easy as a transition. However, for th more restrained, private, or expressive, the benefit of being around people who are exposing, plus the leadership of Linda to create a safe environment for people to do this, often times will bring even the most reserved of artists out of their shell.  You can only sit back and not participate for so long, because you see the transformations happening and you almost want to get in on it so as not to be left out.

 

3. For those who give themselves to the tasks at hand, I really believe the result is complete transformation.  For example I was always a great producer of “products” - pieces of art that were “perfect” and considered…extremely defensible to criticism.  This had become my take on being an artist.  And as a result I had placed limits on myself that were not realistic, healthy, or inducing of creativity.  It was only after I was put to the test by Linda to explore "myself as art" that I expanded into areas I had never considered. The framework of “art as life” is extremely liberating and opens many doors. It’s safe to say I never thought about making objects the same way one i worked with Linda.

4. I see Linda’s purpose whether admitted or not by her, as that of an “Art Shaman” - a spiritual figure driven to truly get to the core of the pain and history and love and energy and light within every artist/student she teaches.  It’s for this reason her class and teaching methods don’t fit neatly within a standard curriculum.  The result skirts the line between spiritual retreat and therapy session and it lasts for whatever constrained timeframe a “course” dictates. But for me the experience has become lifelong.  How do you put a definition on that? How do you explain what its purpose could be except a driving need to enrich and alter the very lives of the students she touches?

 

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SHARON   MARINETTI-LEEPER

1.  Linda's pedagogy is very much free-flowing and without restraints.  She allows for a laissez-faire environment in which peers (students) tend to set boundaries for one another versus a top-down approach where the professor is creating the map.  This makes sense in light of the cohort mentality and peer directives that art school encourages.  In my experience, Linda lead by example and by effective modeling - by her own embodiment of art/life performance.

2.  Class usually began with warm up exercises - lots of "relax your anus" breathing exercises, meditations, body scans, and gratitude exercises.  Sometimes we would move into individual performances, sometimes we would go on field trips, sometimes we would just hang out in the liminal space of ritual that performance creates.  Our time was not unstructured per se, but we tacitly understood that our time was co-constructed, and not subject to any pseudo-academic demands.  The performance room where class held was in itself a liminal space - a time and place very distant from and independent of the academy, but also very much a part of it.  It was this sense of subversion and rebellion from within that very much attracted me to Linda's class.

3.  Class often resulted in inner turmoil, as the content presented and the social dynamics amongst young adult undergraduate art students was not always easily digestible.  Sometimes the performance aspect was therapeutic, but not often.  Linda did prioritize physical safety, which was often tested during performances, yet emotional safety could not be guaranteed.  Aside from aesthetic considerations, performances often gave way to intense emotions and other powerful somatic experiences that the peer-based holding environment was not always successful in containing.  Linda as both a teacher and a mother-figure did her best to contain the happenings, but performance (which is not therapy) is mostly wild and uncensored, and as such resists the confines of the academy.  

 

4.  I cannot speak to Linda's "real purpose" being with a group of people as only Linda can do that, however as a student in Linda's class I can say that I was opened up in some amazing and profound ways on multiple levels; I think that was mostly due to Linda's willingness to be open herself.  Linda's 7 year chakra performances have been incredibly powerful to experience vicariously.  Seeing her walk around the "40 acres" of the UT campus wearing only red, orange, or yellow was very powerful as her presence was a constant reminder of the courage of the artist...if anything, that was her "real purpose" for me.

 

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 RACHEL SHANNON

 

Performance Art Class

6-10pm at the University of Texas with Linda Montano, Spring 1996

 

A large low-lit studio room

High ceilings concrete floors

A big box

 A group of people in a circle

Trading head massages, make sure to gently rub that tender area just under the skull

The body has 270 bones feel all the bones in your own body

GETTING IN OUR BODIES

Arriving

Getting present

 A guide. Linda our guide.

Linda is calling.

Linda is helping us occupy the space.

 Linda is laughing, we are laying in a circle, heads on each other’s stomachs, starting to laugh. Led by Linda’s wild howls in a slumber party circle game

Sounds begin to emerge, we all show up in the room

 Linda comes in many forms – she brings us her predeccessors, her ancestors, her collaborators -  all through her body. She entertains us, she dares us, she invites us

She points a flashlight into a large, beautiful cave – shows us drawings of ourselves on the walls.

 

Getting present for one hour, two hours, stories, visiting artists –

Reading Performance Art RoseLee Goldberg

Watching videos on the big screen in that room

Sharing our performances for that week – a raw space, an exploratory space

5 minutes each, 10 minutes each – talking seeing trying feeling

 Wigs and a karaoke machine.

PLAY.

 Afternoon inhabiting the UT mall – day of free services – free talking, free haircuts, free listening

 Tell someone the exact words you need to hear, then let them whisper them in your ear.

WHAT DO YOU NEED PERMISSION TO DO?

 Building so much trust, risk-taking, being in our selves, seeing each other and reflecting back.

These are some of the best gifts a teacher can manifest

 (from RACHAEL SHANNON – www.rachaelshannon.com)

 

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ALTON DULANEY

 

1. Linda teaches by creating a comfortable environment, one in which the student feels completely safe, and then invites the student to express all of their discomfort and vulnerabilities through performative and transformative art. 

 

2. A class by Linda looks like a tai-chi class meets an improv workshop meets nap time in kindergarten meets an MFA thesis critique. 

3. The results of the class is both clarity and confusion. I left the class knowing without a doubt that I was an artist and that I would dedicate my life to creation and inspiration. That reassuring identity of being an artist has guided me ever since, and the confusion has field my exploration. 

4. Linda's purpose is allowing the student to stretch as far as their creative muscles will allow and then she gives just a little nudge further. Linda helps to open artistic eyes and see that inspiration is everywhere and that we must only look at ourself to discover a deep well of creativity. Linda prepares the student with confidence to make bold statements and ask thought provoking questions.

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