John Link (d. 2021) "Gator Gait" Acrylic on Canvas, dtd 1986

John Link worked as a professor of art at Western Michigan University.

From the artisit:
"When I was in philosophy, my fellow grad students agreed that we were in philosophy because we couldn’t do anything else. But the same can be said of art. My problem with philosophy was that it requires you to stay still to read, and that bothered me a lot. I also found art to be the antithesis of philosophy. I was told I should study all the great aestheticians because I made a lot of paintings. I told the department head that those people were talking about something other than making art. I did not exactly know what, but art has a kinaesthetic element, both mental and physical, that philosophy does not. Nor is art all that contemplative. You must work your way through a murky soup of possibilities, and all that stuff. Then I flunked the draft physical and did not have to stay in philosophy, so I started taking art classes. Philosophy, understood as wonderment, is a good place to begin, certainly. English was my worst subject in high school and grade school, math and science my best. When I went to college I was supposed to be an engineer. But I took up English because I thought college was a place where you worked on your weaknesses. Actually have a double BA in Philosophy and English. So that’s how I got going, reading great writers in both disciplines."