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Meet the Artist

About the Artist

Raised in California, in a household filled with art, music and a love of the outdoors, Erin now makes her home in Oregon, with her husband, daughter and extended family. Although she was an artistically gifted child, she earned a decidedly left-brained degree in bioengineering from the University of California – Berkeley. But the pull of painting and her passion for nature was strong, and Erin soon became a fulltime artist and arts entrepreneur.

Her hallmark style includes a bold use of texture as well as a brilliant palette of color, hues placed side by side on the canvas to create a luminescent stained-glass effect she calls Open Impressionism. A prolific and disciplined painter, Erin typically photographs landscapes for inspiration and then paints in her studio. About “Maple Lights,” she says, “This is the view I see every night when I come home, and I really wanted to capture that transient light effect, which in the Pacific Northwest lasts maybe twenty minutes. That magical glow…those natural colors…how do I render that? That’s what I try to do in my work.”

The music you hear at the beginning of the video above, from a sonata by Telemann, is performed by Mark and Nancy Hanson, Erin’s parents. Talent clearly runs in the family.

See more of Erin’s work at www.erinhanson.com.

This year’s poem was written by Margaret Melozzi, Lead Writer in Amica’s Corporate Communications Department.