In crafting sculptures that incorporate concepts of weaponry, armor, and the female form, Linda Stein has found new ways to consider issues of power, violence, and protection. Stein studied at the School for Visual Arts before earning a BA from Queens College. She also earned an MA from the Pratt Institute. In 1972 she founded Have Art, Will Travel, a non-profit which offers exhibitions and education on positive, authentic expression of gender and gender fluidity, combatting the sexism often perpetuated by art. In 1990 Stein created an artistic series called Blades that used machetes, musical instruments, and other materials. After 9/11 she shifted focus, creating a series called Knights of Protection which involved human forms shaped from metal, wood, leather, and stone, a theme that has continued to resurface in her work in series such as The Fluidity of Gender (2007) and I Am the Environment (2006). Other series Stein has developed include collage portraits of female superheroes and of courageous women of the Holocaust.
