Performance artist Linda Mary Montano, now in her 80s, invited writer Taliesin Thomas into her home in Saugerties, New York, which functions as a living shrine filled with altars, experimental sculptures, and religious iconography. Montano, who calls herself “Chicken Linda” to connect with the Holy Spirit, discussed her six-decade career as an endurance performance artist, her Catholic faith, her studies with guru Shri Bhramananda Saraswati, and her influential early years in San Francisco during the First Wave feminist art movement. She also recounted personal tragedies, including the murder of her former husband Mitchell Payne, which led to her video work “Mitchell’s Death,” now in the collections of MoMA and the Museum of Conceptual Art, Los Angeles.
This article matters because it offers an intimate, first-person portrait of a pioneering but often underrecognized figure in endurance performance art, whose work blurs the boundaries between art, life, and spirituality. Montano’s practice—rooted in feminist art history, Zen, Hindu philosophy, and Catholicism—represents a unique fusion of religious devotion and radical performance that continues to influence contemporary artists. The piece also highlights how Montano’s home-shrine serves as both a personal archive and a living artwork, underscoring the enduring relevance of her “art/life” philosophy.