Two days after Thanksgiving 2022, Arizona artist Linda Glover Gooch was up to her neck in details: finishing a large commission for a local patron, starting another large commission, preparing her online classes, and managing her Black Friday sale. “It’s been such a whirlwind, I just haven’t had time to stop and think,” she says. “But it’s a good kind of busy.”

Gooch took time to reflect on the many changes in her life and art, and she’s thankful for all of it—the good and the not so good. Her art career started with an epiphany when she was 13 and visited a friend’s studio. “I became enamored with my friend’s oil paintings, and I wanted some of those paints,” she says. “I told my mother, who really listened and started me in private art classes right then.”

Five years later, when she was 18, Gooch moved from Yucaipa, California, to Oceanside, where she found an art studio that offered workshops. She worked as a waitress while she was perfecting her craft and also got involved in the local art league. Within a year, Gooch was selling her paintings and had set out on what would become a lifelong love affair with the Southwest. During the following 20 years, she also continued to take workshops with artists who inspired her—including Kevin Macpherson, Ray Vinella, Matt Smith, Scott Christensen, Joni Falk, and Joan Potter.

Read the full article in the March/April 2023 issue.

Age to Age

Oil
15″ by 28″

“Sunsets at the Grand Canyon can be hypnotizing, as the glow in the sky influences the majestic walls. This display of clouds created sunrays blasting upward while blanketing the canyon with beauty. I knew it had to become a painting.”

The Highway Home

Oil
16″ by 20″

“Inspiration for this piece came from my daughter Lindsey. As she was traveling through Arizona, heading home, this sky appeared. Of course, my family knows to ‘get a picture for mom!’ And she did, hence the title The Highway Home.”