Lynda was born and raised in the beautiful Finger Lakes region of upstate New York, and graduated from the State University of New York (Stony Brook) in 1968 with BA in Sociology.  She spent 2 years with US Peace Corps in Ethiopia as a teacher.  She received a Masters in Occupational Therapy from Texas Women’s University in 1982, and worked as an Occupational Therapist at Baylor Medical Center (Dallas) and Veteran’s Medical Center (Dallas) for 26 years.

Lynda began gourd crafting in 1996.  She has shown yearly at the Texas Gourd Show since 1998, and received many awards there, including Best of Show in 2004. She has displayed her gourds at the Kerrville Arts and Cultural Center for the past three years where she has received honorable mentions

Born in the upstate New York countryside, Lynda grew up looking to nature for craft ideas and materials.  She would gather “artist’s fungus” from trees and etch on their soft white undersides, or wait for them to dry and use a wood burner to make my designs.  She and her friends would make necklaces or pipes from acorns.  Every year they waxed colorful leaves in the fall, and used natural greens and berries to decorate for Christmas.  Over the years  Lynda has  experimented with various media, but has always gravitated back to working with natural materials.  She loved art in school but opted to pursue a social work degree and later switched to occupational therapy because it often uses crafts in its therapy. Today Lynda still uses crafts daily in her work and has  introduced gourd crafting to her patients.