Erik Schmitt

Erik's interest in the arts was borne out of an upbringing in a family of creative people—a father and 2 aunts who attended Black Mountain College and exposed him to the visual arts and fired his imagination with stories of studying with Robert Rauschenberg, Josef Albers, Ruth Asawa and Merce Cunningham. He grew up in Seattle and the San Juan Islands but moved to the Bay Area to study at the California College of the Arts. There he found himself in the midst of a Bauhaus–inspired approach to arts education–studying design, photography and painting. This lack of barriers between the branches of the arts continues to inform his work.

View Available Works

• Scuola Graphica - Venice, Italy, 2024
• Photolucida - Portland, Oregon, 2022
• American Academy in Rome - Rome, Italy, 2022
• Photography Served - San Francisco, California, 2010
• The Center for Fine Art Photography - Fort Collins, Colorado, 2010
• ArtSlant Showcase - San Francisco, California, 2009
• Cecile Moochnek Gallery - Berkeley, California, 2006

• Kala Art Institute, Artist Residency - Berkeley, California,2012 
• Owens Valley Photography Workshop, Workshop with John Sexton - Carmel, California,1995 
• California College of the Arts, BFA - San Francisco, California,1993 

• Artweek Magazine - September 2006
• The New Yorker, Lauren Collins has some fascinating things to say about marginalia - 2015
• Fast Company, A Kindle designer’s touching online memorial to the marginalia scribbled in books - 2015