I caught up with the talented Linda McCluskey, who features in the Art Close and Personal chapter of my book The Art Lover’s Guide to Paris. Linda still exhibits in Paris but has relocated to Italy. We talk about her inspirations, the genesis her evocative, dreamlike style and her love of her new home in the stunning Vallebona, Italy.
Of course, it ends with a spontaneous jam session on the terrace!
Here is the excerpt on Linda from my book The Art Lover’s Guide to Paris (White Owl Books).
American Linda McCluskey came to Paris on a study abroad exchange in 2002 as an excuse to change her environment after losing her partner and love of her life in a motorbike accident. She had always loved Paris and decided it was the best way to move forward. Her class met in cafés, went to the Louvre and other museums, ‘it was amazing’.
At her first group exhibition, Linda was expecting to just have the works shown. They all sold. ‘I said “are you kidding me??” then kept painting and painting’.
She discovered 59 Rivoli by accident while walking past but was too timid to enter. ‘So I joined a Meet Up ground on Facebook and signed up for a visit.’ But arriving an hour early by mistake, she entered, climbed a few floors, met some artists chatting and drinking wine, joined them and forgot all about the group – who finally came up to find her looking as if she belonged there. She soon did. In 2010 she moved her studio here which became a rendez-vous for weekend parties with concerts and hours of artistic banter between friends and strangers.
‘What I really loved about Rivoli was that with 2000 people a week coming through, all of a sudden I realised that just because one person hadn’t liked my painting, it doesn’t mean anything – somebody else is going to like it. So the only one who has to really like it is me. 59 let me not care and get that essential freedom an artist needs.’
(Courtesy White Owl Books)
