My name is Linda Lee Poling Ribal. I was trained in Fine Arts at
Eckerd College
, St. Petersburg, FL. I studied under
Jim Crane,
Margaret Rigg,
and
Robert Hodgell. After college, I married
Gilbert Ribal and we settled down to raise a family. Since this happened in the 1970's we were really being very counterculture by being married at all. And my 25 years of sabbatical from consistent/regular painting , just to stay home and raise my children was also counterculture for that time. I remembered Mr. Hodgell telling me that an artist must work in more than one medium in order to stay fresh and alive in their artwork. Therefore, I chose to work in fabric during those 25 years because fabric would wait when someone yelled, "Mom!" But now I can get out my canvases and paint and get to work on those ideas that have been swimming around in my mind. I came back to painting in January 2007 when I was admitted into
Judith Dazzio's
Professional Critique class at
The Dazzio Art Experience here in St. Petersburg.
Currently, my painting styles fluctuate between "loose-realism" and my "stained-glass effect". I was working on both styles concurrently in college and I am not done with either one of them yet. My self-portrait shown above is done in my "loose-realism" as well as Nathan's Portrait, Mikey, and Thelma's Grateful Rest. The rest of my paintings are done in my "stained-glass effect".
