Linda Hankin

  I was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts on April 2, 1948. The family
consisted of my eldest sister Eleanor and parents, Harry and
Goldie, we all lived in Everett, not far from Chelsea.  Then along
came Susan in 1952 and then Vivian in 1959. That was the year my
father got sick and died. I   was eleven years old when my mother
agreed to move back to Montreal where she was born.
My grandmother owned three tri-plexes, one on Esplanade Avenue, one on Duluth Avenue and one on Durocher Avenue. This is where my sisters and I and my mother lived, at 5937 Durocher Avenue in Outremont, Quebec. The multi-cultural street bounded by Lajoie and Bernard, consisted of French, Jewish, and Greek cultures. The whole area was made famous by such writers as Mordici Richeler. This is where I met Philip Hankin. He lived two streets away on Querbes Avenue. It wasn’t long after we met that the two of us moved away to Toronto and then married a year later. Four years later we moved to the Niagara Peninsula on the Canadian side.

My father was an artist. My father drew detailed pen and ink drawings of horses he saw at the racetrack. I used to accompany my father to the track while he drew. Later, in Montreal, I remember drawing trees, flowers or full landscapes, especially by my favourite spot not far from where I lived, on Mount Royal, I was aware that drawing seemed easy for me. I became interested in art being by my father’s side and rendered little pen and ink drawings like he did. Later I experimented with various papers to get the right effect. This progressed to sgraffito. This is a drawing scratched out with a sharp object on prepared masonite board. The board was randomly painted with various values of Indian ink and then scratched out with a one-edged blade. The end result of this type of drawing resembled an etching.

Even though I was painting and drawing on my own since a child, at 33 years old I was encouraged by Philip to register at Brock University in the Visual Arts Department. After I graduated with an Honors B.A. in Visual Arts I worked for ten years in my studio. My career developed quickly because of my enthusiasm and energy. Large paintings became the norm, showing at American and Canadian galleries both solo and group. A local art gallery then asked me to instruct adult art lessons. Later, I accepted several teaching contracts from Mississauga to Niagara Falls, Ontario, European painting trips were offered after I came back from my own plein air painting trip to Spain. I returned to Spain with students and then I discovered another place to paint and that was Newfoundland. I call my style, Contemporary Realism.

photo by John Struzik