Linda Craighead
Nellie
lindasd9@yahoo.com
My work is about exploring history through an archive of photographs and memorabilia that came to me from my parents and grandparents. As a sixth generation Californian, the work operates as a device to explore personal histories and examine my place in my family’s narrative. I use both mediums of paper and fiber, combining traditional and contemporary techniques to evoke generation of families, layering and merging. Techniques such as photopolymer etching and relief, drypoint etching, mezzotint, collage, Chine collé, stitching, drawing and embossment, are all working together to form a multi-layered image.
Works have been shown most recently in Material Matters 2024, Seager/Gray Gallery, Mill Valley, CA; as part of the traveling exhibition, Printed and Stitched: A Collaboration: California Society of Printmakers and Studio Art Quilt Associates; and About Face, Bedford Gallery, Walnut Creek, CA.
My entire career is based in the arts, both as an arts leadership professional and a working artist. I majored in art history and printmaking at the University of California in Santa Barbara, receiving my B.A. in printmaking and a Special Secondary in Art Education at Oregon State, and an M.F.A. in Design (textiles) at San Jose State University. My arts leadership accomplishments include co-director of the Textile Art Centre in Athens Greece; Spectra Artist and Project Director for a county-wide, art-in-education program for artistically gifted children as part of the Cultural Council of Santa Cruz County; in New York, Project Coordinator for “The Decade Show” for the New Museum of Contemporary Art, the Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art and The Studio Museum in Harlem, Interim Director of Education, The Studio Museum in Harlem, and Special Project Coordinator, for the American Craft Museum’s Centenary Project to write the history of American Craft (10 exhibitions and 10 catalogues); and the Director of the Palo Alto Arts Center and Director of Arts and Cultural for the City of Palo Alto, CA.
