Saratoga News

Photograph by George Sakkestad

Linda Spencer creates colorful artwork--some of it quite large--in her home studio in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

Artist puts modern touch on old techniques

By Shari Kaplan

Los Gatan Linda Bushell Spencer always loved art, but it wasn't until her mother made a keen observation that Spencer, then just a young girl, first entertained the notion of becoming an artist.

Now a professional artist as well as an author and personal-empowerment coach, Spencer covers large and small canvases with encaustics, acrylics and mixed media on a variety of topics, some very personal and self-reflective.

An exhibit of her recent encaustics and other works, "Ancient Techniques--Modern Interpretation," is on display through the end of March at Gallery Saratoga, located at 14531 Big Basin Way, Unit 3, in Saratoga. Encaustic, whose name is Greek for "burning in," involves applications of hot, resin-reinforced, colored beeswax. The waxes fuse together as they melt and cool, creating unique combinations of texture and color.

"My mother bought me dolls, but I didn't play with them. So she bought me paint-by-numbers," Spencer recalls of her girlhood. To make the pictures look more like original artwork, Spencer blurred the borders between the different areas of color.

"My mother said, 'Linda, I think you're going to be an artist because who else would think to blend the colors together in a paint-by-numbers picture?' " Spencer says.

In between her childhood and her artistic success of today came undergraduate and post-graduate degrees, marriage and family and a 15-year real estate career. She also counsels and advises individuals in her private personal-empowerment practice and has authored a book titled Heal Abuse and Trauma Through Art: Increasing Self-Worth, Healing of Initial Wounds and Creating a Sense of Connectivity.

"It's an emotional release to make art," she says of the healing she finds through some of her pieces. Other times, her art proves to be something of a learning experience.

"It's about connection to the universe. I don't understand it yet; it's out ahead of me," she says with a smile. "It's flowing out; after I see it in its physical form in front of me, I begin to understand it."

At Gallery Saratoga, some of her encaustics portray easily discernable images, such as flickering candles and blooming flowers. Others are beautiful, delicately colored landscapes and seascapes, including "Glade in Springtime," "First Bloom," "Aerial View of Monterey Bay" and "Surf at Sunset."

There are also more abstract images, such as "Music of the Spheres" and "The Shell," both of which resemble Dutch painter Piet Mondrian's works. In the latter, a petite white clam shell sits among the encaustics, as do small seashells in several other works.

In other pieces, Spencer makes designs with curly copper and bronze milling scraps brought home by her husband, Karl Herbst, a machine shop owner. Colorfully simple, realistic watercolors balance out the exhibit.

Gallery Saratoga hours are Tuesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. For more information, call 867-0458.

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