One for the Ages: Professor Linda Besemer

Contribution to an article by By Dick Anderson
Occidental College Magazine, Spring 2023

Tucker Neel ’03: During my first month at Occidental, I had the honor of being asked by Linda Besemer to be their teaching assistant. We were in their campus studio and Linda was wearing sneakers caked with so much paint they were practically clogs. Without hesitation, I said yes to Linda’s offer, and it turned out to be one of the best decisions I ever made. I was quickly put to work filing papers, pulling slides, and learning how to help Linda make their fascinating paintings. This involved me applying masking tape in hundreds of parallel lines to layers of acrylic paint Linda would eventually free from the wall to create pieces that boggled the mind and challenged the patriarchal legacy of Greenbergian abstraction. It was repetitive work, but I loved it, especially because it meant I got to hang out with Professor Besemer, listen to their albums, pet their dogs, and get a peek at what it was like to be a real teaching artist.

Linda is direct, asks tough questions, and demands honest answers in and out of the classroom, yet their teaching philosophy is rooted in love and compassion. I still remember one overcast day Linda surprised our drawing class by filling the center of the room with hundreds of fragrant, gorgeous flowers, saying, “If you have to spend all this time drawing, it might as well make you happy.” I’ve seen their contagious passion for art turn clueless frat boys into feminist abstract painters and war veterans into committed watercolorists. At the end of my first year at Oxy, after seeing their commitment to their students and their art, I realized I wanted to be a professor just like Linda.

A year or so later Linda gave me one of their paintings, a floppily rainbow-striped rectangle of pure acrylic paint punctured by metal grommets. Slightly damaged from an installation experiment gone awry, the painting wasn’t fit for gallery exhibition, but it quickly became one of the most important objects in my life and has hung over my bed ever since. Every time I look at it, I think about how much Linda has meant to me and countless other artists.

Linda’s impact on my life extends beyond my time at Oxy. They helped me get into grad school, lent their work to exhibitions I’ve curated, and showed me how to find my way in the art world. Their advice about how to navigate academia has routinely saved my sanity and my job. Almost a quarter-century after that first meeting in their studio, I am now a full-time associate professor at Otis College of Art and Design, and I could have never done it if not for my teacher, mentor, and friend Linda Besemer.

Neel is an artist, writer, curator, and educator living and working in Los Angeles. He completed his MFA from the Otis College of Art and Design in 2007 and has taught at the college since 2010.