Artist Linda Rettich (BFA, Pratt Institute) worked as art director for companies as varied as American Management Association, Air France, Guideposts, Random House and Macmillan Book Clubs, producing book jacket design, promotional materials and direct marketing packages.
Beyond her long, rewarding work in commercial design, Linda is an artist who creates with beads, embroidery and textiles, her ideas stimulated by a life-long interest in ethnic textiles and love of Japanese art and trade objects. She incorporates pieces from her personal collections to create collaged dioramas based on age-old fairy tales, nursery rhymes and folktales. With beaded objects as their focal points, the dioramas make contemporary statements on tales such as Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, Rumpelstiltskin, Snow White, and The Princess and the Pea.
Her work has been exhibited in the Voelker Orth Museum; The Jeanie Tengelsen Gallery of the Art League of Long Island; the Islip Museum; the Phoenix Gallery; The Broome Street Gallery SOFA Chicago - Snyderman-Works Gallery. She has written articles that were published in Bead and Button Magazine. Linda was also a founding member of the Ukiyo-e Society of America, which later became the Japanese Art Society of America. She is currently a member of the Long Island Craft Guild and had been a Board member of The Textile Study Group of New York.
"Building an object with tiny beads is an intense activity. The process demands close scrutiny, constant decision-making, flexibility, innovation, and time. It involves a critical dialog between what I see and where I want to go--allowing the piece I'm working on to discover itself as it develops.
Every project I work on is a creative adventure. I'm never at at a loss for ideas, but only the ones that won't let go become a creative reality. I love working with the smallest of beds to create textile-like patterns, color progressing, textures and tiny details within larger shapes.
When I'm engrossed in a beading project, time and the world 'out there' go away. My need to organize and construct takes over. The quiet, repetitive action of beads-to-needle soothes and relaxes. With a profusion of beads within reach, a threaded needle in my hand, and a visualization that drives me forward, I'm living at my creative edge. It doesn't get better than that."
- Linda Rettich, 2020