Artist Profile: Linda Freeman

By Ellen Samsell Salas

With her husband and three young children, Linda Freeman lives in the Ball Ground house where she grew up, the house where her love of painting and collaging took hold.

“Art is in the fiber of my family,” says Freeman, whose grandmother was a quilter and mother is a skilled craft artist. “I look at art as a way of being — whether or not I make a career out of it.”

Inspired by the beauty of nature, Freeman takes photos of flowers, leaves, or whatever else of beauty she might incorporate into her art. She keeps a notebook, sketching ideas as they come to her.

While her collages and paintings appear minimalist, they convey beauty and meaning through her keen sense of composition, color, texture, and depth. Freeman captures the translucency and shimmer of hydrangea blossoms by applying many small pieces of torn paper and conveys the simple joy of a box of freshly picked blueberries by starting with a solid painted basket and then adding layers of torn paper.

After she visualizes a piece, she begins. As Freeman works, she allows the piece to dictate what is needed to achieve harmony of line, shape, movement, color, tone, and texture. She might enhance a three-dimensional effect by using a dollop of paint applied with a palette knife, by squirting paint directly from the tube onto her canvas, or by adding layers of paper.

Once her mind is on her art, she can work for hours. “I just play,” she says. “I’m in my own world — it becomes obsessive.”

Freeman also likes to incorporate different textures into her art.

“When I paint, I’ll use different types of paper. I’ll use acrylic and watercolor paint, depending on how I want the paint to blend,” she explains.

Sometimes, she adds found objects and leftover paper scraps, or paints paper using brushes of varying widths and shapes, then tears or cuts the paper she will apply. Experimenting with blending, Freeman mixes paints by putting one color on a piece of paper and a second color on another piece of paper, then presses the two pieces together. Although her palettes are often seasonal, for some works, she uses only one color but plays with its tone and texture.

While Freeman does not attempt to convey specific messages through her art, she says, “A piece of my heart goes with every piece I make. I want to make things that bring people joy. I want to create happy things. The home should be a happy place, and I want my art to be part of that.”

For more information, or to view additional works by Freeman, visit LindaFreemanArt.com or find her on Instagram @l.freemanart.