In 1996 my previous studio in Santa Barbara, that lasted for almost 10 years, went the way of all of my studios here in Santa Barbara; it fell to the wrecking ball. At that time my studio became mobil in the heaviest winter rain in memory. Santa Barbara is ordinarily a lovely place to have an outside studio but 1997 and 1998 here were drippy and difficult to get a tan.
Finding myself living in mobil circumstance is not new to me here in Santa Barbara because this is one place to find the beautiful views and people and these luxuries would ordinarily well out of the reach of an Artist without an every day job. This situation can leave the Artist without the benefit of a landlord. This situation requires that the Artist move his studio from one beautiful view to another. One studio location for my mobil studio was East beach. East Beach has 20 or so volleyball nets that are full of game no matter the time of day or the hot or cold.
Living in a van did not stop the Art by any means as you can see from the above paintings.
March, 1999,
HERE WE HAVE A FEW OF PAINTINGS THAT HAVE BEEN DONE IN MY NEW STUDIO IN CARPINTERIA. This concluded living in a van for two and a half years. Finally we found a place that was within our means. The first months of living here were spent healing my eyes from an attack of Iritis. This calmed down enough to paint the paintings here below.
Then cataracts formed and I could not paint, nor drive a car. But I could blow up the fonts, to work on this website, and I was able to fumble through time that way.
Jan 2000, an operation gave me back my left eye and I have been painting again. Thank you very much for your able care, Dr. Erick Coulter.
(Since my first attack of iritis in 1981, I only had vision in my right eye. 20 years of paintings were done with the visual information coming in from that right side, and therefore were interpreted by the left brain. Now, since the operation, information comes from the left side and the right side has a cataract. According to some theory or other, this means that my right brain is doing the interpretation of these visuals.)
Oct 2000 THE NEW ANNOUNCEMENT IS, NOW I HAVE BETTER THAN TWENTY-TWENTY VISION IN BOTH EYES, AND I AM PAINTING AGAIN!
Thank you Dr William Coulter (Erick's Father)
Nov 9, 2000 I have 20/20+ in both eyes now according to my good Dr. Coulter and now I have four paintings being worked on at the at the same time, here they are
click here
Jan 2001 , My daughter Kitty was killed in an accident and so my girlfriend kicked me out of our little cabin and then my Mother passed away May 2002 and through all this I have still been making paintings, although some of them are actually as depressing as the time was for me.
June 2003 I Rented studio in Santa Barbara and i am controlling depression with beautiful views to paint. soon to be here for your viewing. As you can see, this is the leading edge of this auto-biography. December 2003
