Linda Kunick
Linda Kunick is an artist, an advocate, and an activist. She works primarily on paper, creating bright, colorful images with crayon and colored pencil. Kunick returns to similar themes in her work, including nature, religion, and colorful abstractions. One image that appears throughout her work is the butterfly. Butterflies are Kunick’s personal motif, symbolizing change, growth, and freedom.
Transcription of Audio Interview with Artist Linda Kunick
Linda: “I love all colors. When I was growing up I only used blue. Blue was my favorite. But now, all colors is my color. I love butterflies, so I only do butterflies here. I don’t do anything else. I’m a butterfly lady. So sometimes my butterfly is big, sometimes little. It all depends how my mind goes in the morning.
Britni (interviewer): “So, why do you love butterflies so much?”
Linda: “It makes me free. I can do anything I want. Make me be alive. It’s awesome to be a butterfly. It’s awesome to do a butterfly. When sometimes my hand will shake when I’m holding stuff. I didn’t do it forever, it just started, and I don’t know when it started. But, I would hold a piece of paper in my hand, the paper would go, the paper would move all the time. They might look at it and say “why’s she doing that?” and I’ll respond to them, to anybody, “I don’t know why I do it, it just happens now.” When I do art, I hear everybody talking. What I want them to get out (of the piece) I want them to say “Wow! She have it” also, I want them to say “I can do it, I can do it.”
Transcription of image description for Linda Kunick:
This image is one from a collection entitled “Butterfly Series” by Linda Kunick, and is drawn on rectangular paper that is 24 inches wide and 18 inches high using colored pencils and markers. The white background is a stark backdrop for a group of very colorful abstractly-drawn butterflies. It is hard to count how many butterflies, because many of the abstract shapes that form their wings are overlapping. The central focus of the drawing is this jumble of butterflies, but all along the bottom there are seven smaller individual butterflies. A slightly curved black line drawn in marker runs across the bottom of the page, and six of those butterflies seem to be hanging by their antennae off of that string, while the seventh butterfly hovers just above the line on the left side of the page. Each butterfly is outlined in a thick black line drawn in marker, and has two wings shaped like curved bumps, as well as a U-shaped antenna with big black dots at the end of each antenna arm. Their wings are crisscrossed with these black lines, creating abstract shapes. Each abstract shape is colored in with bright colored pencils of different shades, making the butterflies look almost as if they’re made of stained glass. The jumble of butterflies at the center has many overlapping wings, black lines, bright colors, and antennas. Some of the butterfly wings are quite large, and fill nearly the entire page, while others are smaller and seem to cover up a portion of the larger wings. The antennae also vary in size, but at the top there are two large antennas that, side-by-side, span the width of the page, and give the impression of two wide smiles. The overall effect of the drawing is joyful and playful.