ERIKA MARIE CARTER
AKA: ALBONDIGA
BORN: 1962, Santa Barbara, Ca
EDUCATION: BA Studio Arts and Art History, UCSB
WORK: Green House Studios
136 East Yanonali Street
Santa Barbara, Ca. 93101
My work is simply a combination of my imagination, the things I cherish and who I am.
My travels over the past twenty years to central Mexico has been a great influence on my work. My grandparents immigrated from Mexico circa 1915 to the United States. They started their family and raised them in Montecito Ca. The cultural traditions they past down combined with my own experiences in their country shaped my ideals and are the inspiration for my work.
In Montecito the cozy stucco and red tiled groundskeeper’s house is where they lived and where my mother and her siblings were raised. A winding and tree-lined pathway connected their home to the grand estate that Felix Rubalcava (my grandfather) managed. As a child I was fortunate enough, with my 6 siblings, to often skip back and forth between the vastly different houses with free- roaming chickens, rabbits and goats. The warm smell of albondiga soup and homemade tortillas enveloped one end of the pathway, and a grand three storied staircase, secret gardens, paintings and sculptures graced the other end. The colors and textures of these two beautiful homes and the lush green and flowery walk that connects them have become the aesthetic I naturally default to in my work.
I paint who and what I know,
who I am, and what I imagine
to be.