Linda Bastian grew up in the small town of Ayer, Massachusetts to parents who owned and ran a local newspaper. As a child she loved to paint, draw, and color. Her mother hired a local artist to give her private lessons in the 7th grade, as the local schools did not teach art. This introduction to art was pivotal to her development. She attended Northfield School in Massachusetts, and later, Antioch College, where she majored in Design. Linda took a Master's at the Boston Museum School and Tufts University.
   Linda moved from Boston to New York, where she lived in a loft in lower Manhattan for 31 years. During this time, she had 3 solo museum shows: at the Missouri Art Museum in St. Louis, the Amarillo Art Museum, the Bronx Museum of the Arts; and 21 solo gallery exhibitions in Boston, New York, Pasadena, California, and various other venues in the U.S. She was also represented in 64 group gallery shows in the U.S. and Mexico, and 4 museum group shows at the Hudson River Museum, the Columbus Museum of Art in Georgia, the Weatherspoon Museum at the University of N.C. in Greensboro, and the Brooklyn Museum. She studied for her Ph.D. at New York University, giving her entre into college teaching. She taught at the School of Visual Arts (chair of the art education department for 19 years), Tyler Art School, (graduate courses), Hunter College in NYC, and Kean College of New Jersey. Rents in Tribecca went from $80 per month in 1965 to $3,000 in l998, so it was time to leave the city.    
     She accepted an offer to teach in Abu Dhabi, and spent the next 6 years teaching and painting in the Middle East: in the United Arab Emirates (Zayed University in Abu Dhabi), Egypt (City University in Cairo), Qatar (Ministry of Culture, Doha), and Oman (U.S. State Department sponsored visiting artist, Muscat).  In the Middle East Linda was invited to exhibit with the Egyptian Photographers Salon in Cairo, was given a solo show at Bait Muzna Gallery in Muscat (courtesy of the American Embassy), solo showed with the Ministry of Culture in Doha, Qatar, and also with the Ministry of Culture in Abu Dhabi, at their Cultural Foundation Museum. She was also included in the Sharjah Museum's biennial survey of international women artists. Linda's art work has been collected by 5 museums both in the U.S. and abroad, by the Ministries of Culture in Abu Dhabi and Sharjah, UAE, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Oman, and is included in over 20 corporate collections. Much of Linda's work is now in private collections. Linda is represented in Boston by Diana Levine Gallery, in Muscat by Bait Muzna Gallery, in Abu Dhabi by Hemisphere Gallery, and in New York by Terry Wolf at Art Avenues