Today we’d like to introduce you to Linda J Albertano.
Linda, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
In Denver, Colorado, I did not grow up with my family. Instead, I was bounced from one unhappy place to the next… foster homes in which I was worked like a slave from the age of seven and forbidden ever to speak or to have friends… a stepmother who kept me in solitary confinement and told me over and again how she wished she could kill me, but did not wish “to suffer the consequences” and a Home for Wayward Girls, sent there, I suppose, for the crime of drawing breath as I was so often told how unworthy I was to take up space on this planet.
At the age of 19, somewhat like a convict leaving prison, I was issued $50 and a one-way ticket to California. I had never been taught how to drive, to shop, to cook, to manage money or to make friends. But I was lucky! I landed a job at Disneyland as “Space Girl,” the hostess to Tomorrowland! I hitch-hiked to work every day and learned to play guitar in my free time. I was given a brief appearance in “Mary Poppins,” and went on to cameo roles in other productions like “Beach Red,” an anti-war film nominated for an academy award that year.
For a time, I was a “trademark” for Colgate-Palmolive’s “Goddess Soap.” But these latter jobs were short-lived, and, without family or resources, I was often homeless in between. Again, I was lucky! Because I’d been raised to labor without complaint or asking for much, I discovered sheds and garages where I could sleep in exchange for housework.
But having learned to play the guitar, I found a partner to sing with, and we held forth in clubs and coffee houses up and down the coast of California. Then we were offered a tour with the USO of Southeast Asia plus Hawaii and Alaska. We were sent to Japan, Vietnam, Korea, Thailand, and Okinawa. We flew in cargo planes and helicopters and we traveled in jeeps through the jungles of Vietnam during the war. Our partnership dissolved during the tour, and, once again, I found myself homeless in LA. I got a job as a waitress at a socialist nightclub which was subsequently burned to the ground by Anti-Castro Cubans.
At that point, the knot of fear and rage inside me began to erupt into suicidal tendencies. I was fortunate enough to find a caring therapist at Suicide Prevention Clinic who counseled me three times a week for over two years at no cost. I finally decided that I must always have two or three jobs simultaneously in order to be certain I could support myself. My greatest turning point came when I enrolled at UCLA, got a student loan, and worked as a waitress and a map-librarian.
Once again, I was lucky! Because I’d been forbidden to speak in my formative years, creativity became my outlet, my permission to speak. And I really didn’t care what form it took. Though I never wanted to work in the film industry, like Amelia Earhart, I wanted to study what interested me the most. So, I graduated with honors from UCLA film school and was offered a position as one of the first female managers in a successful national restaurant concern, Victoria Station, developed by three gifted Cornell students.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
My creative life became a multidisciplinary one in which I became an acclaimed Performance Artist, Musician, and Spoken-Word Artist. I was so happy to be released from the gulag that these expressions simply poured out of me. The performance stage became my permission to speak! I never formally studied art, literature or music. My formative years were a cultural desert in which the only books I saw were schoolbooks and the Bible. In my role as the dog, one could not resist verbally kicking, I came to develop a kind of numbness to the volley of vitriol so often aimed at me.
I turned the sound into meaningless syllables. Not being able to speak or respond left me extremely passive and, as I learned later, unable to engage in certain kinds of conversation. While others in grade school and high school were reading, exploring, learning to drive, experiencing friendships and sharing enthusiasms, I was locked inside myself with thoughts that excluded the great authors and artists. I developed nominal aphasia (the inability to remember proper nouns). So, even in college, when I was exposed to the greats, I was unable to remember the name of my favorite filmmaker or the title of my favorite film… a flaw that haunts me still and leads people to believe that I’m dull and uneducated.
When my first short film was selected as a finalist for a scholarship at the American Film Institute, I collapsed into gibberish during the interview and began to weep when asked about my relationship with my father. Nominal aphasia is an obstacle that haunts me to this day and leaves me frustrated in any conversation that includes proper nouns. Also, those who express themselves rapidly throw me into that state in which their language becomes garbled meaningless noise from which I long to escape. This saddens me because these are so often the highly intelligent beings with whom I’d hope to have the most interaction and freedom of expression
I was never introduced to anyone while growing up. And, even now, having to introduce two friends throws me into a panic in which their names completely vanish. I once wrote a positive review in “High-Performance Magazine” of a dancer whose work I adore. But when I’ve come across her lately, the fact that I can’t recall her name infuriates her and has caused her to believe that I’m rude, self-centered and not worth knowing. Because I was raised with the unshakable belief that I’m unworthy, I do not apply for grants. It is simply not a part of my DNA to ask for money.
In fact, I quickly learned early in my performance art career, never to so much as request a booking in any venue. Even with a portfolio of glowing reviews from The LA Times, Artweek, and Poetry Flash, I was fairly brutally dismissed and sent packing. I finally realized that because I was trained to be ashamed to ask for anything, they only saw the cringing, fearful 13-year-old inside me. So, I performed in other artist’s pieces and waited to be invited to do my own solos. Which worked well! Because I was eventually sought out, And those invitations led me to a rich and varied life of art, word, and music!
We’d love to hear more about what you do.
As an interdisciplinary artist, I define myself in a multitude of personas and capacities.
I’m bouyant about having overcome the suppression of my being in my formative years.
I’m a performance artist, a poet and a musician who has unleashed her language in both the US and Europe. I often deal satirically with issues of power and subordination and the complexities of a relationship.
I’m proud of having performed in all the major venues in Los Angeles and in many other countries. I was commissioned to mount a full-length performance at the LA Theatre Center, as well as in Barnsdall Park. My original works were mounted at the Wadsworth and The John Anson Ford.
At the One World Poetry Festival in Amsterdam, I represented LA. My words are featured on the Venice Poetry Wall with Charles Bukowski and Wanda Coleman among other notables. In the role of evil nurse and executioner. I’ve toured the US, Great Britain, and Canada twice with Alice Cooper.
For nearly 20 years, I’ve studied West African instruments, playing kora and bolon (West African harp and bass), as well as gongoman. I’ve traveled twice to Guinea, West Africa to study with the traditional greats returning to perform at the Getty, Royce Hall and the Sacred Music Festival with kora virtuoso, Prince Diabate.
It’s been a rich and ultimately satisfying life!
What is “success” or “successful” for you?
I define success as having the capacity and being given the opportunity to externalize the way you think, feel and experience the world in a way that touches the inner lives of others.
Contact Info:
- Website: lindajalbertano.com/
- Phone: 3103921679
- Email: [email protected]
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/linda.j.albertano
Image Credit:
Alexis Rhone Fancher, Frank A. Lutz, Helene Barbara, Habibou Sissoko, Deborah Granger, Pegarty Long, Debbie Zietman, Frank A. Lutz, Frank A. Lutz
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