Linda Matheson

Born on Prince Edward Island, Linda ventured further afield to gain her undergraduate degree at the University of Manitoba, after which she settled in Toronto, began an assistant design job at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and secured a Canada Council Grant to study the use of watercolours in costume sketching, a preparation for her first career as a costume designer.

Linda designed costumes in film, television, and theatre, including classics for the London Stage, Vienna's English Theatre, and Hollywood productions contracted with Disney, Tristar, Fox, Hallmark, ABC, NBC, and CBS, among others.

After a three-decade career as a costume designer, Linda was recruited to the University of California in Davis. There she completed an M. Sc. in Textiles, followed by an Interdisciplinary PhD on the intersections of Textiles/Clothing and Ancient World Literature; she held the position of Senior Lecturer in Comparative Literature until retiring in 2022. Having published academically nationally and internationally, she is currently working on a book of memoirs and—she has rediscovered painting.

Indeed, painting is now foremost on her mind and occupies her days. Back on her Island of birth and choice, nestled in a cottage with her husband facing the New London Bay, she finds that the wind, the waves, the sun, and the sea impel representation. Her medium of choice is presently alcohol-based dye ink, richly pigmented, waterproof, and transparent on polypropylene art paper. This medium entices her with its inherent fluidity and vibrancy of colour that match her passion for expressing the supremacy and splendour of nature as she sees it.