When Linda Legman inherited a series of vintage maps, she didn’t see just see the topography, she saw the opportunity to turn them into a canvas for her work.
"This map is from 1800 and something, and look at the beautiful drawing in the map, and how do I do a composition that doesn't take away from this gorgeous map?" asked Legman.
Her studio at the Studio Channel Islands Art Center is filled with her works, which are detailed drawings of animals on antique maps.
"All my maps are 75 to 100 and something years old," Legman explained. "They're all antique or vintage. This [drawing] took six months, because I had to research the animal. Every piece has a story behind it because I need to share the story. This is Monterey Bay, but I didn't know what to put in this weird map. And then I got the idea for an octopus. This is this two-spot octopus, which is endemic. Endemic means (it) lives only in a particular area — California to the top of Baja," said Legman.
Her vintage map series began with a study of the California Channel Islands and has evolved into works that emphasize endemic, threatened, and endangered animals, many of which are found on our doorstep.
"Off the coast of California are the Galapagos of North America. There's 150 species there that are nowhere else in the world. So this is Santa Cruz Island, which is Limuw in the Chumash word," said Legman.
"And the middle part [of the map], which is nice and big, makes sense to do my images. The island fox is evolved from the California gray fox. Of the eight channel islands, six of them have their own distinct subspecies of the island Fox. They were on the brink of extinction in 2000."
The maps are getting more than a new lease of life, as they are artworks created to inspire and educate.
"I am an artist who educates about the subject matter for which she draws," said Legman.
"I study the animals and the map for two to six months for every image. I don't put out a ton of work," she said of her work process.
What's next for her?
"I am going in the direction of important women because our culture's trying to erase women historically," she answered. "So that map, that nautical chart of the Mississippi River going up to New Orleans, when I got it several years ago, I thought, I have to do something about slavery. I started researching and I found out about the Grimké sisters, who I'd never heard of before, of course, because our history doesn't teach us about women. The Grimké sisters were Sarah and Angelina Grimké, born at the end of the 1700s, the very beginning of the 1800s, and they were raised on a slave plantation, which (showed them) how people were treated, and they couldn't stand it. Their family got fabulously wealthy off the backs of enslaved Africans and their descendants. So they left and became Quakers."
"I decided what they looked like, artistic license again, and made them looking thoughtful and lovely and having the Mississippi River going through their bodies up to New Orleans, which was the main slave center. That got me thinking, what other women should I do?"
And if you'd like the answer to that question, Linda’s works — as well as those of other artists in residence at the Studio Channel Islands Art Center — can be viewed at their monthly Open Studios on the first Saturday of every month.
