Artist Statement

The imagery of flowers recurs in art through the ages with significance beyond their intrinsic beauty and connection to the earth. The flower has symbolized benevolence, comfort and sympathy, marking passages of time through birth, grief, pain and celebration. The cyclical nature of a flower is related to this, gloriously exotic and colorful for a short moment, then fading into something completely different, though equally stunning.

Enameling allows me to recreate these rich, colorful surfaces using drawing and painting techniques combined with the layering of transparent and opaque colors. The process can be spontaneous or intentional and the color palette is as rich and unlimited as in nature itself. The combination of the beautiful and transitory image and the depth of the velvety, luminous glass surfaces allow me to create work that is deeply satisfying and comforting in a fundamental way.

Though taken out of the context of utility, whether vessels, or jewelry, my work is tied to function and strives to create poetic associations in its everyday use.

Biographical Information

Linda Darty is the head of the metals program and professor of metalworking and enameling in the School of Art at East Carolina University in Greenville, NC. She has an extensive national and international exhibition record and frequently teaches workshops on contemporary metal and enameling techniques. Her work has been featured in numerous publications and she is the author of the new book, The Art of Enameling, Ms. Darty has received the NC Board of Governor’s Award for Teaching Excellence, the ECU Alumni Teaching excellence Award and ECU School of Art’s Scholar Teacher Award. In 2003 she received The Lifetime Achievement Award from The Enamelist Society, an international organization, celebrating her work as both an enameling artist and a teacher.