Life & Work with Erica Goebel

Today we’d like to introduce you to Erica Goebel.

Hi Erica, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I am a second-generation native of Los Angeles on my mother’s side. She was an immaculate homemaker, mothering my brother and me in the 1950s and 60s. My father was an artist, an immigrant from Germany, who supported the family as a graphic artist and filled his free time with painting, sculpting, and personal inventions. Although I loved drawing and making things as a child, around my middle school years, his critique of my art class project angered me and hurt my feelings, so I turned my focus to writing and reading. I took on newspaper positions in junior high and high school, was an English major at UCLA, and built a 30-year career in corporate communications. Then, in my last ten years of my professional career, I taught high school English for LAUSD – my hardest job ever!

In all my positions, I always loved collaborating with the design team. I directed photoshoots and produced promotional films and videos. And with my high school students, I always included bits of art history and drawing.

Nearing retirement, a friend encouraged me to check out an online sketching workshop, and from then on, as I had more free time, I pursued classes at Art Center in Pasadena, Los Angeles City’s Barnsdall Art Center, and workshops with artists I “met” on Instagram. I identified myself as a daily painter and set a goal to sell my work. My first sales and encouragement came through my Etsy site, and then five years into my new career, I sold nearly 30 of my 6” x 6” paintings of local Los Angeles scenes in a solo show at the former Los Angeles County Store in Silverlake.

Since then, I have participated in numerous shows in Los Angeles with the Arroyo Arts Collective, The Elysian Valley Arts Collective, Idolwild Gallery, and in a Some Clouds installation by the LA River. Also, I have accepted commissions from clients. And in 2023, I received the Denis Diderot a-i-R grant to attend the Chateau d-Orquevaux residency in France.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
I suppose it’s mostly my thoughts that challenge me. Being a self-taught artist, I could question my lack of art training, deep knowledge of materials and methods, rigorous professional feedback, and my late start as a painter. But “faking it until you make it” has been part of every job that I’ve had in my life – manager, reporter, scriptwriter, speechwriter, publicist, and teacher. Rather than compare myself to other artists, I look at them for inspiration and absorb images that I admire. I am fortunate to have this passion for painting, which draws me to my studio, more urgently sometimes than even pausing to eat.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
In my almost 40 years of living in Silverlake, I have witnessed a lot of new construction and changes in the neighborhood and learned of the city’s plans to alter the reservoir. So, at first my paintings focused on structures that I considered vulnerable landmarks, such as a gas station, a dry cleaner, hair salon, a bungalow court, and sites along the LA River that are part of Silverlake’s personality. I would compose and sketch on-site, photograph, and then render in acrylic or gouache – sometimes multiple times – in my studio at home.

Next, in the company of other plein air painters, meeting regularly on Friday evenings, I focused on scenes around Echo Park Lake and Griffith Park. And when I took trips, I came home with scenes from Joshua Tree, the Eastern Sierras, Panama, France and Morocco.

Presently, I am pushing myself to work in larger formats, with looser brushstrokes and more abstractly rendered images. I now paint for myself rather than my audience that likes familiar local scenes. I’ve been combining my favorite colors and shapes from furniture, architecture, my garden, and desert flora. I work on listening to my visceral, personal choices and stopping thoughts about “will this sell”.

What do you like and dislike about the city?
One of my major “likes” is hiking, and I am so fortunate to have camped in the wilderness of the Sierras and the desert with my family as a kid, so I’m comfortable with outdoor adventures. Living so close to Griffith Park, I have a repertoire of hiking trails to take, and I have a friend that I’ve been hiking with almost weekly for about 20 years.

Of all the natural landscapes I’ve seen and loved, sand dunes for some reason resonate with me the most. I went to Morocco to visit the Sahara, New Mexico for the White Sands, Colorado for the Great Sand Dunes, and closer to home, the Kelso Sand Dunes in the Mojave.

I dislike the way some drivers and even some pedestrians in the neighborhood don’t follow the rules of the road and endanger the rest of us.

Contact Info:

• Website: ericagoebel.squarespace.com
• Instagram: @erica_sagetrim
• Other: https://www.etsy.com/shop/Sagetrim

Image Credits
The photo of me in my studio was taken by Lily Clark The photos of my paintings were all taken by me