Veg out

Erica Epperson's art show opened today in Bellingham, Wash. at award-winning Boundary Bay Brewery.


One of the best parts of my job is mixing business with pleasure. Scouting scintillating stories for you to read draws me to people I like mingling with, even when I'm tempted to seclude from society. Check out the earthy stylings from my friend Erica Epperson. She makes a simple vegetable into a masterpiece. Here's the story I helped write for her bio. It reveals the source of her inspiration.

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The relationship between human beings and their Earth is one of sustenance and dependence.

My acrylic and oil paintings are created to honor this connection. I see beauty in the so-called ordinary around me, particularly food items. Food that appears simple and uneventful at first blush. My work usually portrays food I have grown and eaten myself.

Each piece of an artist’s work has its own spirit. That makes it an object of power, providing inspiration, healing and meaning to people who are receptive to its beauty.

That power has led the artwork of others to influence my own style. My most profound influences are the art deco painters of the 1930s and 40s, and the Works Progress Administration murals created in the 1930s during the Great Depression. These paintings funded by the New Deal are tangible testaments to the hearty dreams of the American people. Aspirations that couldn’t be stolen, not even in the face of large-scale economic disaster.

During the Great Depression, communities gained strength by nurturing hope and working together. With our modern society facing its own struggles, the WPA paintings are a historical and inspirational example of triumph.

From my early years as a kid growing up in rural Northern California, I knew I was meant to paint, and taught myself. Art stayed a consistent and vibrant theme in my daily life. When I moved to Santa Cruz, then San Jose Bay, I operated businesses doing sign-making, mural painting, even a tattoo studio. I’ve since settled in Bellingham with my family, in this region that provides me with deep and rich fodder for my work.



A nod to the papoose

You say tomaaaaato I say tomooooto...


Hot little persimmon

Woke up with wood

Living in the forest is peaceful. Blissfully uneventful most days. Until the wind picks up. Then the trees around the house tremble and creak and threaten to come crashing down on me. When the first one goes, it sets off a chain reaction. The trees are woven together like fabric, and pulling a thread unravels the web.

This time I got off pretty easy. Here’s what I encountered when I ventured out to survey the fallout on my driveway this morning between bouts of heavy rain.

Leaving a beauty mark

Nature has sprinkled magic dust everywhere in the form of autumn leaves. Colorful decorations bestowed upon earthlings by a force bigger than themselves. I thought this streetlight poking through the trees last night resembled the moon.


Even in darkness, bright shiny leaves form a crunchy carpet of many colors.