The following is excerpted from an article published in Fall 2011 in Hidden Coastlines Community Magazine with updates. Republished with the permission of the author.
When you grow up knee-deep in soybeans on a southern Indiana farm, herding Black Angus cattle and chasing chickens after school, it’s hard to imagine that you might one day become an award-winning Florida wildlife artist.
A farm girl like Linda was expected to get a practical education, not fool around with art, so it wasn’t until decades later after settling in Florida that her life was steered into the artistic lane. When the family decided to escape the congestion of Pinellas County, they looked north along the Gulf Coast for a secluded place to relocate and found a new home at the mouth of the Steinhatchee River in Jena. Here, under a dense canopy of live oak, pine and sabal palm, far from traffic and hubbub, Linda found inspiration in the abundant wildlife that flourished and changed with the seasons; in the ebb and flow of tidal and river waters.
Then her mother (the same mother who had not allowed the high school art class) gave her a set of Grumbacher oil paints in 1982, not long after the move to Jena. Linda, at the age of 37 began to teach herself how to paint.
She started by painting ducks, the various northern species that overwinter along the coast of Florida. The local restaurant let her hang the canvases in its dining room. A group of hunters from Georgia came in for dinner one day and bought them. And a career was born.
Completely self-taught, Linda has honed her skills by a meticulous process of trial and error. She makes notes on every painting she produces and has thus compiled an extensive personal set of references on technique, color and composition. Her style gradually evolved to greater realism because that’s what her collectors wanted. Her subject matter has remained personal—the wildlife of Florida and its ever-diminishing habitat. That repertoire also extends below the surface of the water to paintings of fish and other aquatic life.
You can see and purchase Linda’s art—original oils, limited edition prints—at the upcoming 2nd Annual Spring Art Festival in Suwannee on Saturday, March 23, 2019. Her art is also available at
www.dellapoalioldfloridaoilpaintings.com. For more information about the festival, including vendor information, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Photo: Linda Della Poali at the easel in her Jena studio. Linda will be a vendor at the upcoming Spring Art Festival in Suwannee, FL on March 23, 2019.
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