Linda Walsh

Once upon a time there was a little girl in Montreal, Canada, who delighted in painting by numbers. The little girl soon gained confidence and began to draw her own images—elegant ladies with bespoke dresses and intricate hats. The little girl grew into a young woman and discovered that she loved fill her hours painting vivid oil portraits. When the young woman fell in love and married, she had three little girls of her own and she was reminded of her early drawings as she designed and sewed dresses and school uniforms for her daughters.

The young woman—whose name was Linda—and her family moved across the ocean to Limerick, Ireland, because Linda’s husband, John, had a very important job. Linda would wait for the girls to go to school and then set up her easel and paint castles and loughs and other Irish things.

After a year, the family moved to Australia and spent the next few years living in Maitland and Sydney. Linda joined a painting group, took some courses, and found inspiration painting under the picturesque Roseville Bridge. Eventually John’s job returned the family to Montreal and Linda joined several art associations in her hometown, where she sold many paintings and held many group and solo art exhibitions.

Linda gained recognition in the form of several awards and countless commissions. She spent many happy years in Montreal painting dogs, and children, and raising children and dogs with her lovely husband, John. But all members of the Walsh family were not destined to remain in Montreal forever. Two of the sisters, Wendy and Tracy, made their way to Sarasota, Florida, while their parents discovered the joys of life as a pair of snowbirds. When John passed away, Linda decided to join her daughters and grandchildren in paradise. She hopes that her youngest daughter, Kelly, will also make her way down south soon.

Linda is now a permanent resident of Sarasota, where she finds that her art is inspired by the Gulf of Mexico, and by the animals and the flowers that populate her new tropical environment. Linda is experimenting with mixed media and incorporating natural elements into her pieces. She has always been fascinated by the interplay of light and shadow in art and nature and she’s exploring waves and sunsets and beaches with her paintbrush in hand.

One night, soon after she decided to make Sarasota her home, Linda joined her daughter, Tracy Walsh Freeman, for dinner at Café Barbosso. Chef and owner Joe DiMaggio Jr., is a prolific painter as well as a talented chef, and he is famous for providing a place for artists to create, display, and sell their work. He’s also famous for his meatballs, his grandmother’s tomato pie, and the best pasta e fagioli that you’re ever likely to taste. Joe recognized a kindred spirit in Linda and offered to consider her work for display at the restaurant. Linda doesn’t paint live at the restaurant because oil painting is an exceptionally slow process (insert joke here about watching paint dry). Linda has sold quite a few paintings at Café Barbosso as we go to print, and she has others on display, and still more in progress at her home studio.

Not bad for a little girl from Montreal who delighted in painting by numbers, eh?

> Linda Walsh: lindawalsh777@hotmail.com
Instagram: lindawalsh444art
Cafe Barbosso: cafebarbosso.com