Art for art’s sake
Linda Zazanis has a need and ability to continue producing her nail polish-brushed canvases, knick-knacks and jewelry in the face of obstacles that are discouraging and sometimes outrageous. Those in the community who are aware and supportive of her can recognize the use of color and abstract creations as more than therapeutic.



Linda keeps a small black bag containing tiny bottles of many colors, some glittery, and she delights in showing off a new shade of green brought to her by a friend like Gracie in their camp. Her studio, as it were, is under the cover of a tarpaulin that shelters her from the elements. It’s a cluttered place to live and work, and one that has been torn down and rebuilt more times than I can count in the last year. Few in the camp can put together a shanty like Linda’s.
Late last year, when the city sent a garbage truck to clean up what was deemed as an overabundance of personal property cluttering up a public space, Linda was not on site to salvage or protect her possessions, and along with a lot of other items not considered by her to be expendable were several of her artworks—finished canvases, and most of the jewelry, statuettes and other items she had been collecting. Linda, having survived on the streets for enough years to learn how to balance toughness with grace, is rarely prone to total despair, but during the conversation printed below she became understandably emotionally when explaining how the lost artwork affected her.

So they took some of your artwork? What happened?
“They took it. They took it all. For two years I’ve been doing my artwork. For two years I’ve been collecting jewelry, so I could open a store. In January, ok, I had two of the counselors from LA Family Housing that were my helpers, that were willing to go and say that I was highly recommended to get this loan. Ok? I was going in January. I was ready for it and sanitation took it all. I mean, took my future. I tried for two years to get up out of here and it’s like now I’m right back where I started. It’s been 15 years, come on, give me a break! A person doesn’t try that hard and work as hard as I have, 18 hours a day, 7 days a week, to try and get out of here if they didn’t want to get out of here, get out of this situation. They wouldn’t do it. They’d say “Hey screw it!”
There was a three-day notice, but I wasn’t in town. And then I had some of my stuff over there and then this police officer comes up to me, and I had five carts sticking out, and he said, “How many carts are you going to take” and I said “Well, I’m gonna take all of my carts.” And he said, “No you’re not. You’re taking two.” You know? I mean who are you to tell me after everything I’ve done for the last two years, to get out of here? Who are you to put me back at the bottom? By taking everything I own that was of value, that meant anything to me”

Canvases donated by friends and well-wishers have allowed Linda to resume her work.
“ … you know, when you don’t have income… and now at 62 I can’t get a job, because I’m too old. You know? So, I tried… well, you know, somebody said ‘Linda, you know so much about jewelry, and about stones, and about emeralds, and about metals, when it comes to jewelry. Why don’t you try and open up your own store?’ And I have a friend, there’s a couple, that are real good friends of mine, and we all recycle and we have all found, beautiful, wonderful, expensive valuable things. And a lot of them aren’t valuable, but they’re beautiful and they’re still able to be sold. So, I was going to open a store and then that went into the trash. And they put it in a trash truck. A smelly, stinky, dirty trash truck. That goes around down the street and….and puts… you know, empties the blue bins and the black bins, and you know all of the bins that are in front of your house. That’s what they put our stuff in and then they want… you know, they say you have 30 days to go pick it up, by appointment. Get ‘em to answer the phone.”

Most of the artworks in this last series of photographs were lost…


“Anyway, she was all white when I got her and I happened to just start, you know, messing around with nail polish and painting, and trying to get a little color on her. And people were commenting and saying ‘Wow that’s beautiful.’ You know? And so I decide to paint her dress all black and I built her hat up to make it look like it had a feather on it. There was a lot and the thing that is so hard… I was gonna have my grand opening at night and I was going to auction her off for a shelter for single women. It was gonna go for good.”


