The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.2005, Side 9

Vol. 59 #4
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
135
Linde Dunn
by Sigrid Stefanson
When asked about her childhood in
Cold Lake, Alberta, Linde Dunn recalls
only two seasons: endless summer and end-
less winter. Each had their own dramatic
events, be it evening lightening storms or
the Aurora Borealis. The Dunns would
view these natural wonders from their
front porch where the children could safe-
ly watch.
With a dreamy beginning, Linde was
born in France close to New Year’s Day
but the family soon after moved to an Air
Force base in Cold Lake. Her artist moth-
er, Val Dunn, nurtured the artistic talent
Linde expressed from a tender age. Unlike
other children, Linde was truly encouraged
to be an artist because in the Dunn family
the children were allowed to follow their
dreams.
Linde would hear her Icelandic moth-
er speak proudly of the musicians, artists,
and art historians in the family. It seemed a
distinguished career to follow in their foot-
steps. In addition, Linde’s upbringing
exposed her to literature, art, and mytholo-
gy-
While talented in many areas, Linde’s
great love is the writing and illustration of
children’s stories in which she uses Norse
and Celtic mythology as well as fairy tales
for inspiration. Growing up, Linde was
aware of these stories and the elements of
magic and mysticism always were of inter-
est. In her adult work, she explores ordi-
nary magic - the wondrous things that sur-
round us all of the time.
Linde is also accomplished at weaving
on her loom and laments that there is not
enough time to satisfy all of her artistic
desires. She has enjoyed creating original
designs with Celtic Knotwork in recent
years. She explains that Norse Knotwork is
less constructed and delicate than the Celtic
models. The Norse designs are traditional-
ly more bold or fierce and feature animals
or dragons.
Another artistic endeavor for Linde is
to breathe new life into old objects by
painting chairs, tables, shelves, and “any-
thing else that stays still long enough.” The
items come from used furniture stores or
garage sales and sometimes Linde will build
something herself with found bits and
pieces. Linde repairs, rebuilds, and essen-
tially recreates these pieces with multi-pat-
terned designs in bright colours. She loves
the end result of a colourful, chaotic envi-
ronment. When asked about her furniture
she replied, “My philosophy about colour
is that every colour ‘goes’ with every other
colour and I do my best to prove this by
my atypical selection of colour.” Linde
simply gets more pleasure out of making
something out of nothing rather than buy-
ing something devoid of quirks or person-
ality.
Linde is in the process of “ethnicizing”
her name to reflect her Icelandic heritage.
Born Linda Marie Dunn, she uses the
Icelandic spelling Linde for Linda and her
mother’s name Svala to create Linde
Svalasdottir.
Her training in art began with lessons
from her mother in Cold Lake and then
she moved south to the Alberta College of
Art in Calgary, Alberta. Over four and a
half years Linde majored in textiles and
minored in drawing. While that was twen-
ty years ago, she still approaches new tech-
niques with fresh eyes. Her style is contin-
ually recreated as her interests change or as
she finds a new form in which to experi-
ment.
Linde is currently a member of the
Studio 28 Artisan’s Guild of North-
Central Alberta and also the Cold Lake
Visual Arts Society. At present, she is
working on upgrading her Diploma of
Visual Art to a Bachelor of Fine Arts
Degree through the Alberta College of Art
and Athabasca University.