Around The Bayside

Artist juggles responsibilities to open gallery

By: Lisa Fox

  “I couldn’t not do it.” 

     When I met artist Liz Lind, I knew I wanted to write about her… her paintings, her energy, and her new gallery opening up in West ocean City this month.  I love creative people.  Artists, poets, writers, musicians, chefs; I’m your alpha groupie.  Creative people are often dark and crazy, yet when their brilliance shows through, there is no brighter light. 

     Liz Lind is a buxom blonde with close cropped hair slicked back with kid’s barrettes. (Sometimes she has it in pigtails.)  She dresses like a seven year old girl out of control, mixed tropical colors and prints wit no abandon.  Sometimes she has a mouth like a sailor, yet, I met her at an artist’s reception at At Home in Lewes, Del., and there saw the grownup side of Liz; a businesswoman attending to the commercial side of artistry.  She balances the tightrope of motherhood, running herd on her two young boys, while sustaining a give and take partnership with her husband Gordon.

     I understand that tightrope.  I is very hard o emulate Hemingway, scribbling furiously in a cold water flat in Paris.  When you have the family squalling for dinner or bills to pay creation can be a struggle.  (Besides, who will find that other sock lost in the dryer, and make sure that holidays are celebrated with all the trimmings?)  I can’t speak with authority on the male side of the creative equation, but for women to take their creativity to the highest level, it helps to have a trust fund, a nanny, and at the very least, a maid.  It is our basic nature, and that often means putting ourselves, our deep down wildly creative selves, on hold.

     Liz did it anyway.  I asked her how long she had painted, and she said, “Always.  I don’t remember a time I didn’t paint.  My parents didn’t encourage me, and didn’t want me to be an artist, but, I couldn’t not do it.”

     I walked around At Home in Lewes, a showcase of extraordinary oriental rugs, luxurious home furnishings, and Liz’s paintings on display.  Her work reminds me of “Madeline,” about a little girl in a French orphanage.  The book is illustrated with line drawings, and imbued with a childlike zest for ordinary things like a walk in the park and beautiful views from the bridge.  Liz’s subjects are the same, culled from life in Annapolis and summers on the Eastern Shore, yet she takes the line drawings and mainlines them with vivid color, so much so that you absorb the blue of the water, feel the warmth of the sun, taste the sheer joy of raspberry sherbet on your tongue.

     Parental disapproval aside, without the benefit of a silver spoon, Liz waitresses her way to being an artist.  Sometimes she worked  two jobs, at her Mom’s Annapolis frame shop during the day and schlepping meals at night.  She is one of those women who give the rest of us hope; trailing a Hansel and Gretel trail of crumbs guiding us to our dreams.  Besides, her work looks great on our living room walls. 

     I will let you know when her gallery opens in Decatur Business Park.  I might even make the hummus and slice the cheese.

     I know that I will drink the wine, and be proud to know the artist.  You can see what I am talking about at www.lizlindeditions.com .  See you next week!