Donna  Lee Linder, Largo Florida

Through watercolor, oil, sculpture, and photography, I conjure a personal mythology—an unfolding tapestry of symbols, memory, and emotion. My work is a ritual of transformation, where inner landscapes take form and the invisible becomes visible. Each piece is a vessel, carrying echoes of dream and story, inviting the viewer into a world both intimate and archetypal.

 

Portrait Artist  Storyteller  Educator

Donna Lee Linder’s artistic journey began long before she ever picked up a brush. Raised in Andover, Massachusetts, just above Shawsheen Village, her earliest memories are steeped in sensory detail: an ice-skating pond, a shallow brook crossed by a wooden bridge, swings that creaked in the wind, and Mrs. Todd’s garden filled with snapdragons and handmade paper windmills. These impressions of place, texture, and quiet wonder continue to echo through her work.

 

In 1951, Donna traveled to Florida in the front seat of her father’s Hudson Hornet, following the narrow two-lane highway south toward a new life. Her family built a home near the wooden turnstile ridge leading to Indian Rocks Beach, where she won her first award for a display of native flora gathered from the wild, undeveloped land surrounding her home. Even then, she was observing, collecting, and translating the world around her.

 

Artistic Background-Donna’s creative path has never been linear—it has been expansive.

At St. Petersburg Junior College, she won an award for her performance in a drama contest, presenting The Yellow Wallpaper. For a time, she imagined herself teaching English literature, drawn to narrative and the emotional architecture of stories.

Her formal art education began in earnest in her mid-thirties. After earning an AA degree and completing a year of English literature studies, she enrolled at the University of South Florida’s Art Education program. By the 1980s, she had earned both a BA and an MA in Art Education with honors. Along the way, she studied painting with a local artist in the late 1960s, nurtured by early encouragement, and deepened her appreciation for classical art under the guidance of her college instructors.

 

Donna’s professional life- has been equally rich.

She worked with the Woman’s Caucus for Art, handling publicity and helping bring the Guerrilla Girls to USF—an experience that sharpened her understanding of art’s cultural and political dimensions. She collaborated with arts writers Charles Benbow and Mary Ann Marger at the St. Petersburg Times, further grounding her in the regional arts community.

As an educator, Donna taught in the Pinellas County School System before joining the Dunedin Fine Art Center, where she taught children in the clay studio. Her own practice expanded into sculptural clay vessels and figurative work under Kyu Yamamoto, while she simultaneously explored watercolor with Judy Dazzio. Today, she continues to refine her portraiture under the mentorship of Markassia Touliatos at DFAC.

 

Artist Affiliations

 

•         Portrait Society of America

•         Dunedin Fine Arts Center

•         Creative Artist Guild of Dunedin — Exhibition Chair

 

Artistic Identity-Why I Make Art

Donna’s love of visual art was sparked when her uncle gave her a hardbound copy of World Famous Paintings, edited by Rockwell Kent. Though she never met her grandmother—an artist who painted landscapes, watercolors, and ceramics—Donna feels a generational thread connecting them. Art, for her, is both inheritance and calling.

As she developed her practice, her work began receiving local recognition and awards, affirming her instinct to pursue the visual arts with increasing depth and intention.

 

Inspiration

Donna is currently focused on portraiture, weaving stories and mythologies into her compositions. She fractures and reinterprets these myths, embedding them with elements of her own lived experience. Her paintings become layered narratives—part personal history, part cultural memory.

 

What She Wants Viewers to Feel

Her work documents the interplay between her interior and exterior worlds. Through researched imagery and symbolic layering, she tells stories that invite curiosity. She hopes viewers will sense her ongoing dedication to craftsmanship and feel compelled to explore the meanings embedded within each piece.

 

Artistic Philosophy

Donna believes that mark-making is one of humanity’s oldest impulses—a visual record of existence. Some artists, she notes, live in counterpoint to their talent, their lives forming a kind of “ecological succession” that shapes their creative output. She reflects on figures like Van Gogh, Frida Kahlo, and Basquiat, whose personal complexities became inseparable from their artistic legacy. Donna’s own work is rooted in this tradition of artists who use their craft to navigate, question, and illuminate the human experience.

 

Juried, Invitational & Open Call Exhibitions & Awards

 

Galleries / Exhibitions

2025 Werk Gallery 

2025 Gallery 120 Largo Public Library 

2023-25 Dunedin Fine Art Center 

2023-25 Martinis and Matisse 

2022-25 Stirling Gallery 

2022-24 Professional Association of Visual Artists

2024 Clearwater Arts Alliance, Clearwater Library 

2024 Beach Art Center 

2008-10 Morean Art Center - members Show

2004 Visual Poetry Gallery

2003 30th Annual Art Festival Beth-El

1998-05 Cool Art Show

 

Selected Distinctions/Awards

2026 Best In Show - Stirling Gallery

"Florida Impressions Exhibit"

2025 Honorable Mention – Stirling Gallery

“ The Really Big Show”

2023 First Place – Stirling Gallery

“What’s Your Style”

2021 People’s Choice Award – Largo Library

Creative Artists Guild

2008 John Eckert Memorial Award for clay

2003 Purchase Award – 30th Annual Art Festival-Beth-El

 

 

 

What People Are Saying about Donna’s Art

 

" The artist has captured a beautifully intense expression on the subject’s face. The suppleness of the skin shines through along with the texture of the leaves and the luxuriousness of the fabric. The artist draws the viewer out of the frame to imagine what or who the woman is looking at." Tarin M, Clearwater, Florida

 

"This photograph captivates with its emotional punch and inventive technique. Using motion blur and transparency creates a ghostlike, layered scene full of energy and tension. The grayscale palette amplifies mood, while light and shadow carve out striking depth. 

Clever object placement and soft lighting pull the viewer in. It’s a bold, dynamic blend of movement and stillness-both technically brilliant and visually captivating." Eric H, Clearwater, Florida

 

"Earning the top prize of an art competition often requires more than technical mastery. It was immediately clear from the first walkthrough that this was a prime contender for the top prize. This piece has a true aura. There's a serenity that extends almost beyond the piece itself. It shows a true balance of skill and feeling to create a mood that stays with you even after you've walked away from it". Antonio P, Dunedin, FL