Hidden Garden Art Gallery

From Leslie Barbara Zelinsky (Epling)

Born in San Francisco, CA, I was exposed to myriad cultures as well as arts. From an early age I sang and composed music which I performed accompanying myself on guitar. After graduate school, I bought a sailboat in Florida and taught myself navigation eventually sailing to Hawaii. There I became a diver on a glass bottom boat and a performer in the evenings; I found that diving and singing did not go together as I couldn't hear myself sing. Next I settled in the south of France for a year composing music for an English playwright and sketching the old town where I lived. I returned to Hawaii via a steel-hulled boat outfitted in Denmark to become the second replica whaling vessel known as the Carthaginian in Lahaina, Maui. Upon my return I met my husband, Tom, and we drove from California to Costa Rica in a VW bug rigged so that we slept on top in a tent propped up by a dinghy. We came to Playas del Coco in 1974, delivered a sailboat along with its owner to Jamaica and returned to Coco to raise a family. I was inspired by Tom to work with recyclable materials and became fascinated with melting glass. I've also worked in several other mediums and artforms. Photography is new to me but I have been inspired by what I've seen to capture these images.