Virtual Art Tour

Eric Michaels, American, born 1948
"Traveling Drummers" (#975)

Traveling Drummers

"Eric Michaels was born in Libertyville, Illinois," according to a biographical sketch for Artistic Galleries. "From early childhood, he drew and played guitar.

His parents were supportive about his interest in art and sent him off to college in Dubuque, Iowa, where he majored in art. He became proficient in oils, watercolors and life drawing, and graduated with a B.S. in fine arts. Not knowing how to make a living with a fine arts degree, he went on to do graduate work in psychology at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb.

During a summer engagement as the musical entertainer at a dude ranch in Michigan, he met and subsequently married his wife, Maxine. One day he announced to Maxine that he was going to paint and with that he went out and bought supplies. The first year he remembers as "mostly producing junk and throwing about 500 paintings in the trash can."

A trip to the Yucatan in 1983 became a watershed in his career. "I discovered a whole world down there was waiting to be talked about and I was excited and in love with it more than any other place I have ever been." The world south of the border keeps beckoning him and he has visited the Mayan ruins, Oaxaca, the Tarahumara Indians in their cave dwellings and, most recently, the Indians of Guatemala."