Shirley Erickson reflects

Intense sunlight was streaming through the lace curtains of the east window directly into my eyes.  I was in my crib, wearing a blue flannel outfit with feet.  I managed to roll over onto my stomach, get my knees pulled up and hands outstretched.  Pinching the sheet with my hands, I inched my way toward the head of the crib.

Between the crib rails, I saw a beautiful woman sleeping, her thick auburn hair rumpled.  Next to her, a handsome man, his dark hair cut back from his forehead.  I said to myself, "My mother and my father and aren't they beautiful!" 

I was hungry but I didn't want to awaken them.  I kept clutching the sheet and pushing with my knees until I reached the head of the crib where I grasped the sheet, pulling it back to reveal the mattress.  On a background, a pink pig pranced, a ribbon on her tail and pink rueshing around her throat.  And, there was a horse!  He was blue with white circular dapples...between his ears was a large feather boa. The horse wore a fancy bridle  He was trotting.  Standing on his croup was a beautiful girl dressed as a ballerina.  She was fairy-like, balanced delicately on the trotting horse.  I did my first drawing, tracing the outlines of the horse, the girl, and the pig with my baby fingers.  I knew, then, that I wanted to be a painter, and that horses would always be an important part of my life.  My thinking was that of an adult.

I don't remember previous awareness or verbalization of my thoughts, but a few months later, sitting in a high chair, being spoon fed by my mother, I looked at the people around the table.  My mother, my father, O'Mama (grandmother), sister Anita, brother, Norbert, the hired girl and a guest, an army major on leave from Australia.  The major had just told a joke.  Everyone was laughing, except for me.  The language was too advanced for me.  I decided I would memorize every word, store them away until a later time when I could pull them out of the mental file and finally comprehend.  That became a lifelong habit of memorizing conversations which, years later, could be repeated verbatim...

January 24, 2011 (written by Shirley D. Erickson)

Prelude: Francesca, in the movie, "The Bridges of Madison County," tells her children in a letter they found in her hope chest after her death, that when one gets older, one simply wants to be known, known for who they really are. The following is an excerpt, written by Shirley Erickson at age 83, which tells her story from her own words. Now, suffering from advanced stages of emphysema, Shirley is very ill. She wants to be known for her work as an artist, and for who she really is.

Shirley Erickson writes:

Fast forward to late August 1930. I was three months shy of my fourth birthday. I didn't know why (until many years later)I felt abandoned. No one talked about my mother's having delivered a beautiful baby boy who looked at his mother, smiled, and then died. My mother's grief was profound. She was barely capable of functioning. Every morning she dressed me, fed me breakfast, and put me outside to play in the sand pile. No one ever checked on me. After a few weeks, I began walking to school to be with my sister, Anita, and brother, Norbert. I was barefoot and gritty from sand. The teacher of the one-room schoolhouse let me in and sent me home at recess, escorted. I met the teacher (who was my godmother) everyday, until the teacher visited my parents, suggesting that they allow me to enroll in first grade. I was the baby of the class. Everyone protected me. And, I loved being there.

One of our forth grade classes was "language;" we were learning about adverbs, pronouns, etc., but one day this teacher showed us a large full-color poster of "The Horse Fair," painted by Rosa Bonheur. I was astounded. Beautiful horses and painted by a woman! We were told that the painting was at the Metropolitan Museum in New York City. hat day, I knew that I would definitely be a painter. And, I became a painter, a horse breeder, and a lifelong fan of Rosa Bonheur.

Many years later, my husband (Don) and I were in New York City. We went to the Metropolitan specifically to see "The Horse Fair." I sat on a bench and studied Rosa's work. She was a master!

About two weeks later, a newscaster announced that there had been a fire at the Metropolitan Museum, and that "The Horse Fair" had been destroyed. Now, years later, a report stated that efforts are being made to restore the painting. I hope that will happen.

On The River

When I was young, my family would drive to my grandparent’s house on the “River.” The “River,” as we had come to call it, had a family history behind it. My great-grandfather built electric power dams. He had used dynamite to alter the flow of the river upstream, leaving underbrush of trees and bushes which would scrape the bottom of our “row boat” and, sometimes make it treacherous to maneuver.

Arnold, my mother's father, had asked my father, Don Erickson, an architect, to design their River home for him and for Bernice, my grandmother. My father designed a structure which began with a garage and transitioned it into a type of A-frame with redwood siding. Dad placed the children’s room in a loft with windows that looked into the living room below. As children, we used to sneak up to the windows and watch the adults in conversation, and sometimes catch a glimpse of a television show.

Suffice it to say, the home stood out from the farmhouses nearby and across the River; the River home was perched on a hill above the river itself, with two piers where we fished with bamboo poles and worms. Grandma would fry the fish that we caught for breakfast, and we would go out again, on the river to catch snapping turtles and then let them go.

Our father taught us how to skip a stone on that river. We have thrown a pebble into the river and are watching the water around it ripple in concentric circles, casting out for like souls, lovers of beauty and appreciators of art.

Pencil drawing, “The Boat that Si Wilcox Made,” by Shirley D. Erickson, depicting a boat on the White River, Wautoma, Wisconsin
As pictured in gallery flyer, “Seven Variations, June 7, 1964
Owned by Judge Wilcox, Wautoma, Wisconsin

Timberdoodle

Number of prints pulled: 400

Ruffed Grouse:

Number of prints pulled: 750

Walking Quietly in the Woods

My mother is an artist; she was born that way.

Mom is also a storyteller. I remember her telling my brother and I (for we were the oldest of three children), to walk quietly in the woods, as quiet as a Native American would. Mom had lived with the Apaches on the White Pine reservation in Arizona where she did watercolors in summer and lived with the local minister’s family on the rez.

Mom would say, “Shhh. Walk without a sound, don’t let the leaves crackle beneath your feet, don’t let the branches snap back from the trees as you pass through the woods.” I used to practice walking quietly without making a sound.

We were told that our great, great grandmother, Jessie Ytah, was Native American and that she left her son and husband on the farm with dinner made and freshly washed diapers for their child. Jessie married five times and ran a boarding house in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin.

My mother is a native of Wisconsin, hailing from the small town of Neshkoro. Even today, the town still claims a small population of residents. Mom was born in one of the houses in town near the Mill.

But, I digress. Sometime after being born and living on the rez, and well on her way to being a “painter” (for most of her work is done in oil), my mother worked as a counselor at Hilltop Camp in Spring Green, Wisconsin. A tall, willowy brunette with an intellectual, yet mischievous mind, Shirley captured the attention of Don Erickson, a thin, carrot-topped young man who was apprenticing at Taliesin which was located just 1 ½ miles down the road from Hilltop. Hilltop was run by Herbert and Eloise Fritz; Herbert was an architect who also apprenticed with Frank Lloyd Wright and who later developed his studio at Hilltop.

At Hilltop, my mother taught art to the campers and equestrian skills. In fact, aside from being born an artist, my mother was born with a love for horses. She believed that her stallion, “King,” literally saved her life (but that is a story I will reserve for another day.)

Don, my father, once told me, “Your mother was the prettiest girl at Hilltop. I decided to pursue her.” His pursuit was successful; the two married a few years later and they forged a partnership, intent on being two great artists in their own right. With seed money from their parents, Don designed and the couple built their first home in Palatine, Illinois. Although pregnant with me, Mom helped to roof the home, and stain the wood, and paint the concrete floor a Taliesin red. Once they moved in to their new home, Dad began to develop his architectural practice while Mom pursued her work as an artist.

Having recently helped my mother develop a retrospective catalog of her works, I was breath-taken by the beauty of her paintings witnessing so many together from beginning to now, a span of nearly 60-years. . .