Linnea

I write poetry in secret. I hope that when I die the first person to find my poems doesn't throw them in the garbage. I grew up on a very old mountain about 30 minutes from the George Washington Bridge. I decided that I wanted to become a lawyer, and later I decided that I wanted to become a State Senator. That idea lasted until I convinced myself that no one would vote for me. I studied government with a concentration in political theory at Thomas Jefferson's University of Virginia in Charlottesville. I was 20 when I graduated, which I think is a neat factoid, but it's not on my resume. Another neat factoid is that I got a black belt in Tae Kwon Do at age 9. Anyway, after college I decided that I wanted to get my Ph.D. and specialize in visual propaganda. Nonetheless, at 20 I knew nothing about the world, so I moved to the center of it, Boston, and began studying at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts (SMFA), also known as The Museum School. I had never had any professional art training before, so you can imagine how I drew. If you can't imagine, then I suggest you draw something. Now look at your drawing. That is how I drew, too. Oh, and I was fat. Somehow I was accepted into the Post-Baccalaureate program at the SMFA, but when I was given the opportunity to move to Florence, Italy to study privately with Tuscan sculptor, monument and fountain designer Marcello Guasti, I opted for Italy. I fell in love with Florence, stayed for a year as planned, and eventually moved back to NY scratching and clawing. A very close Italian friend, Domenico (AKA Mimmo), and I kept in contact, and after several months of going back and forth between the US and the continent he told me he loved me and asked me to move in with him. That is exactly what I did, and we're still together. We live in a studio apartment that used to be the library of a 14th century palazzo. I laugh really loudly a whole lot, I say more than my share of nonsensical things, and my long stint abroad has caused me to forget how to say a great deal of fundamental words in English. My New York accent has also faded away with time, so when I go home people ask me where I'm from. I find this more than slightly disturbing. I used to be shy, then I became highly extroverted, and now I'm a little of both. I am also super confident and exceptionally self-deprecating. Musical instruments do not like it when I play them. I was once asked to become the Welcome Girl at Palazzo Gucci. I've even been asked to model about a dozen times for a variety of painters, professional photographers, print ads, and local Florentine fashion shows, but I've never participated in any of these affairs because I always think the people asking don't know what they're talking about. I have spent years studying five languages other than English, but I can barely say a sentence in four of them. I've had all kinds of fantastic jobs, mostly in business and the arts, but nothing can compare to our latest project. Mimmo and I have opened a wrought iron interior design studio called Mimura: Art in Design. We should have the website up soon, so when it's ready I'll make sure to post the address here so you can see some of the work we do. I promise it's phenomenal. Everything is done the old Italian way, which means that it's all banged out by hand and fire. Of course, we also do custom-made designs that can even come from a drawing you've made. I've never really stopped going to school. I've studied classical French figure and portrait sculpture for bronze in the chateau studio of Martine Vaugel (www.vaugelsculpture.com) in the Loire Valley, drawing for painting and restoration at Palazzo Spinelli, classical realist figure drawing at Charles Cecil Studios (www.charlescecilstudios.com) through the British Institute, and I'm in the middle of my second year studying figure and portrait drawing at La Scuola Libera del Nudo at L'Accademia di Belle Arti. For reasons beyond comprehension, I really don't paint or sculpt anymore, and most of the drawing that I do is in three-frame comic strips whose characters are about two steps away from being stick figures. I'm very happy with them. Ramsey Arnaoot and I used to make comics together in college. Ben Letzler wrote an article about the series, which you can find at http://www.columbia.edu/cu/thefed/v2/archives/16 /16.5-breakfastape.html. Perhaps the best thing about me is actually my luck in finding the greatest friends on earth. Truly, all of them. I even have a fourth generation friend. That's right, our families have been best friends for four whole generations. My pick of the litter is Stephanie Allen. Stephie studied underwater archeology in college. I wish I had known that was an option when I applied. By the way, Stephanie really has her head screwed on straight, so if you ever need some really great advice, she's the best person I know to give it. My mother is from northern Sweden, and somehow Sweden has allowed me to become one of its citizens. She is one of the world's foremost experts on stuttering, and she is also a professor at Columbia University. My father is a Jew from the Bronx. He used to be Vice President of Warner-Amex, which later became Time-Warner and American Express, and he helped to create MTV. Now he owns a consulting firm in the power industry, which he wants me to inherit and run. I don't want it. If you're interested, I could consider selling it to you. He's also a psychologist. In fact, he was just elected President of the New York State Psychological Association, but I think he's insane. My sister, Kate, lived in France for three years where she studied art at the Sorbonne in Paris and at the University of Aix-en-Provence in the south. She has been living in Manhattan since June working at Tiffany & Co., but she just moved to Los Angeles to become a gemologist. That is all.