LINDA STECHESEN

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LINDA (FAIRFIELD) STECHESEN With her family by her side, Linda (Fairfield) Stechesen succumbed to a one year struggle with leukemia on January 3, 2017 at the Riverview Health Centre in Winnipeg. Born on December 2, 1939. Linda is survived by her husband of 53 years, Leslie Joseph Stechesen, a life partner in the truest sense, and by their loving children, Erica (Mark) and Aaron, by brother-in-law, Ron (Barbara) Stechesen, numerous cousins, nephews and nieces. Linda was predeceased by her father, Dr. George Fairfield, mother, Stella (Madill), sister, Georgeanne Jenkins, and niece, Adrianna Jenkins. Leaving her home city of Portage la Prairie in 1957 for studies at the University of Manitoba, Linda returned home often throughout her life, spending extended summers at her cottage at nearby Delta Beach where she re-grouped with childhood friends. Primarily though, summers were for her art, that significant core of Linda her friends trace as far back as her school days. Her 1961 Bachelor of Interior Design degree from the University of Manitoba's Faculty of Architecture and Interior Design led to further study at the Faculty of Fine Arts. Thus grounded, Linda began a career, employed initially as a teaching assistant at the University of Manitoba where she taught a generation of students the art of architectural rendering. A passionate environmentalist and naturalist, Linda turned to art. Her signature paintings of landscapes, flora and fauna, was balanced with her life goal which she named 'The Garden'. The goal was to leave her home province with an artistic rendering of each of its plant species, hundreds of which she could identify by name, on sight. This pursuit took her to Churchill, Manitoba to uncover northern species. Many of her illustrations can be found in the Manitoba Museum's, Wildflowers of Churchill. Linda fell in love with Leslie when their eyes met across a room; and he with her. They married in 1963 and remained partners throughout their life together. In their riverside home in Saint-Norbert, they raised two children, Erica and Aaron, who share many of their mother's qualities, straight-forward, committed, funny and resourceful. To Linda, the greatest gift of life truly was friendship. She loved and cherished the fellow artists she mentored and drew close, her Mahjong and gourmet cooking friends, and her lifelong companions: her childhood friends from Portage La Prairie, her sorority sisters and the Saint Norbert gang. All ache for that vital, beautiful woman who carried herself like a Vassar girl, who loved long prairie walks and family, who left a freezer full of animal corpses for future paintings, whose twinkling eyes, sense of mischief and light drew us to her, kept us laughing and longing for the next visit. Linda, always optimistic, interested, lived for and loved each day. She tackled the worst with characteristic bravery and humour. "Phooey," she declared in December, in response to the prognosis the end was near. Like ice buried in shale Visible by radar, loss unanswerable, Disappearance from clay riverbanks, loss In the fields and by the lake and in the desert, Loss in the cilia, stamen, petals, sepals Your hand touched twice To place, to paint Before the moment passed like a breath. A celebration of Linda's life will take place on Friday, June 9 at 7:00 p.m. at the Howden Community Centre, 1078 Red River Drive. (For directions, consult Google map). Donations can be made in Linda's memory to CancerCare Manitoba, Mentoring Artists for Women's Art, or Portage and District Arts Centre.

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As published in Winnipeg Free Press on Jun 03, 2017