Angel artist shares faith through paintings

            11/08/02    GREG GARRISON, News staff writer

     For artist Linda James, a 1963 Auburn University graduate with a degree in visual arts, angels are a recurring theme. All of her paintings, which tend to feature winged figures, lambs and sheep, are named after Scripture verses, which doesn't exactly make her art a more marketable commodity. I've talked to some galleries that don't want to carry Scripture, she said. It puts them off. But James insists on her way of doing things. It gives me an opportunity to share my faith, she said. It's the way I'm able to witness .

     James has a selection of her paintings on exhibit at Monty Stabler Galleries in Homewood, where she's the featured artist of the month. All the paintings reflect spiritual subject matter. It depends on what God's teaching me at that time, she said. Jesus is the Lamb, and we worship Him, but we're also sheep, and we are under Him. James, 61, attends Mt. Vernon Baptist Church in Atlanta and paints in an Atlanta studio with other artists. Many of her paintings are displayed at Bennett Street Gallery in Atlanta. She painted her first angel in 1964 and has been painting them ever since, along with mystical figures surrounded by auras. They're figures in worship, she said. I want to share who God is, James said. We were made to worship and praise God.