Hi, my name is Marilyn Erickson and here is my story...
(WHY I WAS DRAWN TO THE SOUTHWEST LANDSCAPE)

I grew up in the crowded West Side of Chicago where concrete covered almost everything but a nearby park, offering me only a touch of nature, a place to dream.

I was always fascinated with cowboy movies, especially those made in Red Rock country. I imagined myself being there in all that amazing beauty perhaps as some kind of female Robinhood, riding a horse into the sunset, having campfires under the stars, discovering new places.

Many of the movies I watched were made here in Sedona (over 50 of them)…so it's no wonder I was captured by Red Rock country. The theaters at that time were like magical palaces, an escape into another world for just those few hours. My personal escape was to the Southwest landscape.

At age 20 I came out to Arizona where I met my husband Ken and we lived in Arizona for a period, followed by Southern California and then Nevada. In 1992, we came back to Arizona and settled in Sedona. My art and my spirit are deeply embedded in the landscape of the Southwest where I find an endless source of inspiration, a virtual lifetime of subjects to explore.