About Me
Linda Fogg (nee Sawdo) was born in Atikokan, Ontario, and spent her earliest years on Sanford Lake where her parents owned a fishing camp. When Linda was 8, the family moved to Crystal Lake, a beautiful, clear water lake located about 30 km. east of Atikokan. She attended public school and high school in Atikokan.
Linda, who is largely a self-taught artist, began painting at the age of 13 when her parents gave her a set of oil paints for Christmas. At 14 she won a sponsorship from the Atikokan Lions Club to attend an art course at the Quetico Arts Training Centre located at Eva Lake, Ontario. She eventually took additional art courses at the Centre, and later in her career, attended workshops elsewhere when the opportunities arose. She learns from others by spending a lot of her free time going to galleries and reading books and articles on art techniques and styles.
Linda’s early life in the outdoors of northwestern Ontario imbued her with a deep and abiding appreciation of nature. Her deep spiritual attachment to the land and wildlife is evident in her magnificent paintings. Wildlife is the primary theme in her work. Particularly compelling are her paintings of wolves.
Linda’s appreciation of nature and her ability to portray her feelings for the land and wildlife continue to grow.
However, while nature and wildlife have been her main interests, Linda has also realized that to be successful as a professional artist, she has to be versatile. She is equally at home doing still lives, rural farm scenes, harbors, and scenes depicting forestry logging operations. In addition, she is capable of producing very fine and sensitive portraits.
Most of Linda’s work is done in the medium of acrylics. She handles her acrylics almost like watercolors, working in washes with lots of layering and wiping the surface. She says, “Since I am basically self-taught, I tend to explore and invent my own rules. The effects can be very interesting. I tend to pay less attention to realistic detail, and spend more effort on creating the mood.” She has also worked in oils in the past and still does so from time to time when she really wants to ‘work the brushes and feel the canvas.”
Watercolor painting is another medium that Linda enjoys, often painting them on site, or in artist’s parlance, en plein air. Watercolors are a very spontaneous medium and one is never quite sure how a painting is going to turn out. She works in a small format and usually completes a painting in less than an hour. Often the watercolors turn out to be little jewels, works of art in their own right, uniquely capturing a fleeting moment or feeling. Many of them are also used as studies for later paintings.
Many people believe that the artistic processes that influence and guide an artist are mystical, and while Linda concedes that painting is the ultimate form of self-expression for her, it still requires a lot a plain hard work and self-discipline. In her words, “Discipline is the key to becoming an artist…The inspiration comes later.”
After an absence of many years, Linda has returned to Atikokan to be in the area that has been the wellspring and inspiration for much of her artistic endeavors.
She lives with Mike at the beautiful residence he built over the Sapawe Corner Diner. Their home features a panoramic south view of Niobe Lake.
Update: 2016: Linda is working on a mural size 8’ X 4’, which depicts a northern scene, complete with a moose and an eagle. This can be viewed in her diner, completion slated for early May 2016.
Update: Linda is presently working on a collection of lake scenes which will decorate the walls their new motel, as well as a large mural which will decorate the side of the motel. Her most recent art show (Aug. 2014 to Nov. 2014) was at Canada Border Service in Fort Frances, Ontario which featured 9 recent works.