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Featured Artist Lindy Giusta

Writer's picture: FawnFawn

Our second issue of Weird Lit Mag features the work of one artist, a strange duck named Lindy Giusta. While she has portrayed a huge range of subjects in her drawings and paintings, in recent years she's focused on arguably the most oddball and evocative subject: the face. Her portraits carry her distinct style of lines that look alive, colors that vibrate, and eyes that dance with you and haunt you at the same time. We chose four (including our cover): Botanical Transitions, Lucrative Landing Dock, and Why Head-low. Read on to get to know this lovely swipe a little better.

Ink and selected color drawing of a man's face with natural elements

What compels you to write or create, even when it's hard? 

One thing I can appreciate about myself is that when I set my mind to my passionate pursuits, I tend to really put my all into it. I’m a freight train to be reckoned with at times, which serves me well but can sometimes be frustrating. I create art most days, whether just a simple five-minute sketch or something more grandiose, and have been doing so for around eight years now. I feel remarkably better and most myself when I’m creating, and art has been my biggest focus over these past years, but I also adore playing mandolin, writing, and reading. 


What other creative endeavors do you pursue?

I have recently started to delve back into writing as it’s a creative enterprise that I have always loved. As a former librarian, I also am a book nut and have a budding book collection. I have an extra fondness and devotion to small independent presses. 


I also really love playing mandolin and have recently been taking photographs of certain angles, architecture, textures, and whatever else I feel touched by or exhilarated about, usually in the city I live in and love, NYC. Typically revolves around little odd moments in time that catch my eye.


What's your first memory of realizing you were good-weird (not one where you felt ostracized or bullied, but one that gave you a positive feeling instead)?

I’ve always been an oddity of the highest caliber but living authentically and true to my nature is extremely important and essential to me. The most tangible visual and surreal memory I have is breaking away from the popular group in junior high and becoming a loner by “choice,” but really, the girls were all so mean to each other, like cats scratching at one another with long, ungroomed claws. 


I developed two strong kindred friendships where we’d ride blue kick scooters and wear gaudy jewelry and purple eye shadow and shrieked at all the humans we passed. Everyone else was dropped off at school or rode fancy bikes, but I much preferred the original kick scooter, not a razor but the big wheel chunkers which came before. I guess that ages me. The good odd (I hope) just escalated from there. 


What is your favorite word? 

A three-way tie: thrice, fondle, and swipe.


What will your biography be titled?

“Dine and Dash” or “Don’t Put Another Dime in the Jukebox.”


Name a book that made you cry (or feel like crying).

My soul is stone-cold jaded and I don’t cry while reading these days. Nah, not really. In all serious mannerisms, I can’t recall, but as a young person Black Boy by Richard Wright touched me on a deep and emotional level. 


What's a movie you return to again and again? 

Purple Rain.


Have you ever gone on a literary pilgrimage—to see an author's birthplace or setting of a favorite novel, etc.? 

Over the past month I’ve been deep-diving lit mags and indie publishing presses which usually means an obscure and random book will show up at my door the next week, or I’ll find out about new authors through said obscure publications and delve into their website and work. Driving from California to Dollywood with two librarian coworkers was the closest to an obscure and exciting pilgrimage, but that was more musical in nature. 


What's your process for naming characters? 

There’s always gotta be a Wanda.


What is your ideal writing environment (busy coffee shop, silent home office, the train, dark pub, etc.)?

Cozy, well-done coffee shops, in my inspiring but tiny shoebox Brooklyn apartment, or at a particular favorite—a cafe in Brooklyn called Molasses that serves as a weird little obscure bookseller, a coffee lovers paradise, and they are open until midnight daily. Tiny and charming and magical AF. 


What profession other than your own would you like to attempt? 

An interesting form of graphic design work, some kind of nonprofit work making a difference with creativity, small press publishing, so many things, I’m realizing!


What would constitute a “perfect” day for you? 

Too hard. Either an exhilarating adventure or a slow coffee day with great music and mandolin playing, stellar books, art supplies spread out all over, and lovely company, even if we’re super quiet together. 


Who's your favorite weirdo? 

Amanda Palmer and Dolly Parton but love them all; weirdo authenticity is attractive. 


Unpopular opinion, go: 

When someone asks for my ID, which is becoming pretty darn rare, I typically say, “sure but I’m practically dead.” I have trouble not saying it—it just comes out, but nobody appreciates it. 


Advice on creating that you’ve learned by trial and error?

I used to rush through art like a beast and most of my work looked unfinished, which was part of the charm of my earlier art, but I have recently been noticing my capability of slowing down and enjoying the process and details that can come along with it. Figuring out how to slow down my process was a difficult but essential part of my creative development. 


Read the Fall 2024 issue here!



Lindy Giusta (she/they) is a Brooklyn-based artist specializing in mixed-media portraits. Driven by a passion for creative expression through art, Lindy explores themes of identity and vulnerability in her watercolor, charcoal, pen, and gouache pieces. When not drawing or painting, she can be found reading, playing the mandolin, and indulging her love for coffee. Her work can be found on her website lindygiusta.art and on Instagram @lindydoesart.

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Original work featured on Weird Lit Mag is copyright of the respective creator. Site is copyright Weird Lit Mag.

Weird Lit Mag is a platform for the weird and boundless. We encourage free expression and inclusivity. Keep it Weird.

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