The Young Prospect By Linda Luster

Artist Linda Luster was a frequent contributor to the Chronicle in the early 1980s while living in North Carolina. After taking 16 years off from art to train dressage horses professionally in Maryland, Luster returned to her artwork full time. She works out of her studio on her farm in Rocky Ridge, Md., where she still keeps her hands in training a few horses.

This week’s cover, The Young Prospect, is an oil on canvas of junior rider Ashley Foster, 11, Brookeville, Md., with her ponies, from left, Godiva, SpongeBob, Hillcrest Blue Snip and Goosebumps.

“These were  her favorite ponies, and she wanted all of her boys together,” said Ashley’s mother, Patty Foster. “This is her last year on small/medium ponies, so we wanted something special to remember them.”

In 1995, the Chronicle published an article called “50 Years Of Chronicle Cover Art” featuring 13 covers that had received the most reader response (there were 2,600 covers over the 50-year period) and Luster’s artwork was one of the favorites.

“My 1982 drawing of the Fat Pony Little Child was among those chosen,” Luster noted. “Pretty heady company I was in too…George Stubbs, Da Vinci, T’ang Dynasty, Jean Bowman, among others. I’ve been a frequent contributor since then.