December Artist of the Month – Meet Linda Zug
December Artist of the Month
Meet Linda Zug
Linda Zug grew up in Pennsylvania and attended Wheaton College in Norton, MA where she majored in French. She didn’t take any art classes because she couldn’t afford the materials at that time. She went to college on scholarship and worked to make spending money. Her husband, also from Pennsylvania, was in graduate school at Harvard. After they got married, they moved to Wellesley where they lived for 35 years. Zug taught French and together they raised three children. There was no time for art.
When she was in her late forties, Zug saw an exhibition by Bill Ternes in Sherborn. She fell in love with the watercolors and decided to call the artist to inquire about lessons and he told her he was doing a workshop in the Bahamas. Off she went; “I bought one of those wonderful French easels and I couldn’t even set it up.” Zug went with Bill and a group of painters to do plein air painting in the Bahamas every January and to Martha’s Vineyard in June and September. “He was always inspiring. He encouraged me to take some classes in drawing and in other mediums, so I went to Wellesley College as a post-baccalaureate student. There I studied with James Rayen, Elaine Spatz-Rabinowitz and Phyllis McGibbon.” Zug remains “so incredibly grateful to all of the people who took an interest in my art over the years. I realize how rich my life has become through art.”
Zug began painting in 1990 and in 1992 was juried into the WSA, where she is still an exhibiting member. She shared a studio with artist Mary Haig, “another great mentor,” at the Warren School in Wellesley. Margaret Fearnside and Fritz Kubitz were also very important to her development as an artist. As a member of the Wellesley Arts and Crafts Guild, she took classes and joined groups, including a portrait painting group with live models. She has been in juried shows through the Concord Art Association and has sold her work through the Sculpin Gallery in Marth’s Vineyard. “I don’t sell a lot though,” says Zug who feels that each of her pieces are a part of her, “I give a lot to family and friends.” For Zug, painting is very personal, “It brings me to a special place… a place where I don’t know where I’m going until I am finished.”
Zug’s current mentor is Michael Dowling of Medicine Wheel Productions in South Boston. In addition to taking classes at this studio, she traveled for 8 years to an annual painting retreat at a Benedictine monastery in Tuscany. In 2009, she had a show of her monastery paintings at the Medicine Wheel Gallery. This grouping was also shown at the Dover Library in 2010 where she was celebrated as Artist of the Month. She described this work as a “response to the Benedictine sisters’ aesthetics of hospitality and to their devotional work and ethic where the artist has created a space for self.” Her work there “reflects the beauty of Italy with the theme of sky and a world where heaven and earth meld together.”
While she dreamed of having a studio in Cambridge, she and her husband moved to Sherborn after raising their family. She now has a studio above the garage and ample countryside views with magnificent light which she has grown to appreciate more and more, especially during the pandemic. She has been blessed with 7 grandchildren who she is happy to say “cut into my painting time. They love painting in my studio,” and she loves sharing her studio with them. She believes that the creative potential is there for everyone and that painting “is like your handwriting. It is different for everyone.” For Zug, “painting is a journey inward, it is a meditation, I lose track of time and fall into a wonderful space. Winston Churchill said, “Happy are the painters-for they shall not be lonely. Light and color, peace and hope, will keep them company to the end, or almost to the end, of the day.’”
wanted to be different”, Teresa recalls, “art, however, kept calling me”. In high school Higgins found her creative outlet in both theater and art. She attended the University of Maryland where, with a plan to teach speech and theater, she majored in education, with specialization in speech and theater and minored in English. Her roommate was majoring in art and “was carving balsa wood sculptures while I was reading Shakespeare and agreed to share her art supplies with me”. She encouraged Higgins to move to Boston and take graduate art classes at Massachusetts College of Art.
Upon moving to Boston, Higgins taught English at Boston Latin while taking landscape and portrait painting courses at night. She moved to the painter’s paradise of Marblehead and while teaching speech and theater by day, she developed her painting and exhibited with great success. She eventually moved back to the Boston area and found new inspiration in her son. “I had this beautiful little boy…children are so wonderful to paint.” She moved to Natick where she was able to create a third floor studio in her home. There she began focusing on pastel portraits of children.
Higgins has been a member of the WSA for several years and was a past member of the Copley Society and Pastel Society of America. She believes, “If you are blessed with a creative gift, its important to develop it. It will always energize you, lift you up and bring you peace”. 
Despite the engaging objects he paints, Bruckner is more focused on style than on subject matter. His mosaic tile illusion provides cohesion to his pieces and provides harmony. The confetti-like background exudes fun, happiness, and exhilaration. His unique style is in many ways influenced by his time spent living in Los Angeles and Miami.
Coming next for Bruckner is a solo show at the Natick Mall in November 2020. He has just finished nine paintings, many inspired by some of the pioneers of the Pop-Art movement such as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Keith Haring, Jeff Koons, and Robert Indiana. “I paint anything that makes me happy or I think would make other people happy when they see it. As a Pop Artist, I love to paint popular things using my signature style, whether they be famous people, iconic places, or lovable characters, words, or abstractions. There is a lot of variety in my artwork ranging from paintings of Oreo Cookies and Hershey’s Kisses, to, Madonna or Marilyn Monroe, to Boston’s Citgo Sign and the Last Vegas Sign, to paintings of colorful puppy dogs and Hello Kitty. Observing the first time a collector sees my artwork in their home is something that thrills me. It’s an inspiring reminder of the transformative impact a painting can have on the overall look of a room and the pleasure it gives people.”
His children are now grown and his son just bought his first sailboat at age 26. About 3-4 years ago, Barnard’s painting took off once again. He remains self-taught and continues to develop his own style and techniques. He recently painted a water scene for his daughter and her husband who are running a medical business in Nigeria. His art continues to evolve and take on more meaning. Currently he is working on a series of landscapes with hidden features dealing with the progression of life and death. Water Over the Dam, painted after the passing of his mother, is a compilation of scenes, including the church in England where he went as a child, the South Natick Dam where he now loves to kayak and an image of a man on a bench with his head in his hands. This piece was awarded Honorable Mention in a WSA show.
