Linda Sugar - Artist Statement

Why am I an artist? Creating, exploring, processing, inventing, healing, recording, summarizing only touch on the answer. Making art is like breathing for me. I puzzle over what fills other people’s thinking as they wander through their day. My mind is figuring out how to put things together. I was born with the art bug and have never recovered. During the holiday dinners with family, as a kid, I would quietly disappear into my grandfather’s little office and make color paper characters.

My next stop was NYC. I enrolled in Queens College as an Art History major and studied the beauty of the Masters’ brush stroke. Brushstrokes are my meditation. If I’m stressed, confused or insecure, I go to the museum and just look at brushstrokes. Living in San Francisco for 30 years I created with varied media. There I enrolled in SF State as a Fine Art major with emphasis on sculpture. My customers ranged from display companies needing a hip new look for a reindeer to hotels. Using mostly wire, paper and color, they were light and textural.

While crossing the country 50 years prior I fell in love with New Mexico but was too young and restless to stay and let that love burn. Now I play in its light and the love. Our robust history and terrain provide constant inspiration. Energy is everywhere. That energy seems to take over as I paint. It has the power to move my arm and hand as that energy becomes brushstrokes and I, its vehicle of delivery.