Category Archives: media
2019 Collage and Painting
2018 Collage
2017 Drawings & Prints
2017 Collage
2016 Collage
- Charlotte Barton, detail 1
Forty-five Tiny Works
A series of collages on paper, all measuring 4.5 x 6″
2015 Collage
40 Families in Jars
2014 Collage
- Ernakulam
3 Cohens ‘Tightrope’ CD cover illustration
Anzic Records brings us the excellent jazz of the Cohen siblings. Read all about it!
Great Small Works Toy Theater Festivals
A toast to my heroes, Great Small Works.
(…more posters from previous years coming soon…)
Featured in Tablet Magazine
An illustration for Benjamin Corn’s article ‘My Grandfather collected Etrogs…‘
2013 Collage
Louie Fleck, First Taste Is Free cd
Taarka, Adventures In Vagabondia
The newest cd of the gypsy-jazz, bluegrass, Celtic, chamber-folk, jazz, rock, and Indian influenced band Taarka is being released in September.
2012 Collage
2012 Drawings & Prints
- the text is Malayalam for ‘parrot’
- the text is Malayalam for ‘white elephant’ or ‘elephant of the Gods’
- the text is Malayalam for ‘tiger’
- the text is Malayalam for ‘fabulous beast’
- the text is Malayalam for ‘face’
- the text is Malayalam for ‘memory path’
- the text is Malayalam for ‘tree’
- the text is Malayalam for ‘rabbit’
- the text is Malayalam for ‘tree swing’
- the text is Malayalam for ‘egret’
- the text is Malayalam for ‘peacock’
- the text is Malayalam for ‘buffalo’
- the text is Malayalam for ‘fly’
- Chakali toys being distributed to children in the Muj Mahoda community of Baroda
- an edition of 100 lino-prints on muslin, stuffed and sewn, made in Baroda, India
American Craft Magazine
In the October/November issue of American Craft, my work will illustrate an article by Glenn Adamson who discusses the Studio Craft and Folk Craft Movements, as well as imagining a dinner party where Leonore Tawney and Gandhi are on the guest list…
Songs of Wonder cd composed by Basya Schecter
Songs of Wonder is a collection of yiddish poems written by Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel in his youth. The poetry explores the philosophical, spiritual and mystical dimensions of love, nature and how to be of service to the world. Composed by Basya Schechter (from Pharaoh’s Daughter), arranged by Uri Sharlin (piano, accordion, glockenshpiel), and additionally performed and interpreted by Megan Weeder (violin) and Yoed Nir (cello).
To be released on John Zorn’s Tzadik Records in the fall.
Cover illustration- American Tensions: Literature of Identity and the Search for Social Justice
The Lives We’re Given, The Lives We Make | That Which Holds Us Together, That Which Pulls Us Apart | Landscape With Figures: Human Experience in the Natural World
These are the three sections of American Tensions, an incredible collection of fiction, poetry, and essays edited by William Reichard. He writes: This Anthology is full of threads and knots. If you enjoy discovering what connects each of us, the threads of experience and insight that translate across time, place, and culture, then you’ll likely enjoy the work you encounter here.
Published by New Village Press.
Featured in American Craft Magazine
The April/May issue of American Craft Magazine pairs my illustration with the article Craftier Than Thou by Glenn Adamson.
Writing about the idea of corporations using the concept of craft to sell their wares, Adamson refers to a Jeep Cherokee commercial, which states: The Things We Make, Make Us.
I felt a sense of duty to represent some of the people and places the commercial forgot to mention, the casualties of the Auto-man Empire. One page was not enough room to fit the story of Manaus and the Rubber Boom, The Cherokee themselves, the various landscapes of industrial ruins, and all the individuals in dozens of countries whose jobs and land were turned to scrap in the name of corporate craftsmanship. We forge ahead embracing debris and obsolescence.
2011 Collage
- Illustration for Taarka’s upcoming cd ‘Adventures in Vagabondia’ . . . sold
- Taarka, detail
- Game . . . sold
- Fable . . . sold
- Something . . . . sold
Abigail Washburn’s City of Refuge cd
Abigail Washburn’s amazingly beautiful City of Refuge cd has been released.
This album is quilted from scraps of Nashville, China, a cello banjo, Mongolian throat singing, a fiddle, a choir, some talk about plagues, the future of tradition, the drive for global collaboration, the wonder of human connection, and an homage to the folks who came before us.
She talks about some of those things in this great little video.
It is my honor and pleasure to have contributed the artwork for the cover, website and tour…
Cutting out some shelter and staining a mass of humanity for the poster…
Adding my grandparents, a monk, anonymous mid-century people doing good work, a doily from a cookie box of Katherine Holman’s (cookies recreated from Aunt Violet’s original recipes) and a rabbit for good luck…
And an ominous incident over a mantle woven from Crescent Lake, Broken Bow, Bikando, Yangchow, Soochow, Ogallala, North Platte, Kyoto, Chinan, Kumos, Wuch’ang, Alma-Ata, Fengyuan, Keriya, Baba Hatim, Bon Aqua, Abiff, Lyles, Graham, Vernon, Only, Hurricane Mills, Scobell Island, Lucy Point, Kodak, Knoxville, Melville, Cuba Landing, Sugar Tree, Holladay, Yuma, Juno, Alberton, Coxburg, Lexington, Kimball, Sterling, Brush, Big Springs, Wildersville, Springcreek, Beech Bluff, Jackson, Oakfield, Coalfield, Windrock, Oliver Springs, Byington, Wartburg, the bends of Clinch, Bemis, Kamakura, Gomdu, Ndele, Gamane, Beri, Bimba, Jaunde, Jengone, Dancyville, Keeling, Denmark, Laconia, Germantown, Daylight, Campaign, Rock Island, Noah, Kuerhlo, Kara Shahr, Turfan, Telli, Bulun Tokh, Ulughchat, Kashgar, Zaysan, Crab Orchard, Guma, Kobdo, Ulaan Uul, White Earth, Marylebone Point, Frogue, Zula, Susie, Alpha, Gartok, Chandigarh, Meerut, Moradabad, Jaipur, Agra, kanpuro, Lucknow, Varanasi, Katmandu, Montezuma, Finger, Milledgeville, Selmer, Serles, Pocahontas, Chewalla, Swift, Gillises Mills, Olivehill, Martins Mills, Lutts, Pickwick Lake, Cypress Inn, Gatliff, Moscow, Murtea, Mienyang and other places nearby.
Cover art: The Nine Senses by Melissa Kwasny
Milkweed editions has just released ‘The Nine Senses’, Melissa Kwasny’s fourth book of poetry.
She writes about ghosthandkerchiefs, being dead and almost dead, the migration of birds, water, being mute, bridges, burlap, flour-bags, cloaks, shrouds and sacred cloth, venetian glass, linen and salt, frosting and a Cold Milk Moon, where the women of myths and fruit trees intersect, and almost every color.
Thank you, Melissa! I feel very at home on the cover of this lovely book.
New illustrations in ‘Metamorphosis’ by Milkweed Editions
Milkweed Editions celebrates 30 years of independent publishing with this book, Metamorphosis.
book cover illustration for Karen Joy Fowler
The piece used for the cover illustration of Karen Joy Fowler’s What I Didn’t See and Other Stories from Small Beer Press.
the hungry jungle alphabet
UPCOMING!! The Hungry Jungle Alphabet, a Bedtime Companion…
with text by Howard Lewis Russell.
2010 drawings & prints
- In Hindu mythology, Varaha the boar was best known for his outstanding work rescuing the earth from the bottom of a cosmic ocean, restoring it to its rightful place, and establishing a new era or cycle. The script is Hindi for ‘kal’ meaning ‘tomorrow or yesterday’, depending on the context. With this print, I’d like to make a New Year’s toast: To the 21st Century Progress of Great Developing Nations. May you carve a restorative path for us in this new era…
- the script is hindi for ‘unknown’
- the script is hindi for ‘crow and goat’
- the script is hindi for ‘thursday’
- ashkenazi
cd cover illustration for The Walking Hellos
cd cover illustration and website images for The Walking Hellos, which features Brooklyn neighbor Myla Goldberg.
2010 Collage
- Overland
- The Sea-Kings of England
- Birds Worth Knowing 2
2009 drawings & prints
- good winter
2009 collage
- Raid Das Mocas (Game of the Dolls) . . . sold
- Constantinople . . . sold
- Joan of Arc . . . sold
- Ghosthouse . . . sold
- Owlady and Machine . . . sold
- Bosporus . . . sold
- Targets . . . sold
- Metropolis, Asia . . . sold
- Heaven and Earth . . . sold
- Beetheater . . . sold
- Miracle 2 . . . sold
- El Cerro . . . sold
- Sahel Miracle . . . sold
- Man and Beast . . . sold
- Sleep . . . sold
book cover illustration for Melissa Kwasny
“Miracle of the Pitanga Tree” illustrates the cover of poet Melissa Kwasny’s new book, Reading Novalis in Montana, from Milkweed Editions. Continue reading
2008 Drawings
- To Watch Secretly, To Turn To See, Noiseless, Nightmare, To Try To Get/ To Grasp, The Past, To Be Perplexed/ Lost. . . . . . . for a list of available drawings, please see shop
Chinterviews
chinterviews from erica harris on Vimeo.
| 8 min. 2007
Phoebe Keeling Vandusen, Cousin Donna Dru, and Erica Harris star in this candid and introspective commentary filmed entirely on location in Woodstock, NY.
Trabalenguas
trabalenguas from erica harris on Vimeo.
| 1 min. 2007Griselda Rubidia Castro Rodriguez stars in this short film made in Colima, El Salvador.’trabalenguas’ translates as ‘tongue twisters’.music: excerpt from ‘camp bingham chronicles’ by erica harris
The Big Ship
The Big Ship | 6:05
made at Hall Farm in 2005
music: “Vogt Dig For Kloppervok” by The Books
“Green Grass of Tunnel” by Mum
songs from the book of knowledge: pigeon
The Story of The American Pigeon, Cher Ami
Pigeons bred and trained for racing or for carrying messages are termed homing pigeons.They possess a remarkable sense of direction and can be trusted to return several hundred miles to their home lofts. Caesar used pigeons as messengers, and at the time of the crusades, there was a well established pigeon postal service. Thousands of homers are kept by clubs in America, and even more in Belgium for the sport of pigeon racing. A speed of 60 miles an hour over a course of 75 miles in not uncommon. 40 miles an hour is considered good speed over distances of 125 miles or more.
During the World War, where telephone and wireless communication was not possible, the services of these feathered messengers won for them the praise and admiration of the world. All the armies made use of them. At one point 12 miles behind the French lines, the British kept 60 pigeons housed in a London motor-bus. The outside had been roofed to form their cage, while the attendants, consisting of a chauffeur, trainer, and orderly, slept inside. A perch was cleverly arranged before the opening in the front, so that when the birds alighted on returning from their flight, an electric bell alerted the men inside, day or night. The pigeons were taken out to the trenches in baskets to serve as needed. If not used in 24 hours, they were released anyway with some message, to keep them in practice. Birds were always sent in couples with the same message, so if one happened to be killed, there would still be a chance of the message arriving safely. An American Pigeon, Cher Ami, brought help to the famous Lost Battalion of the 77th Division. They had written a message telling where they were and asking for help. This message they put in a little aluminum capsule, fastened it to the left leg of the pigeon, and opened the coop. Up Cher Ami rose until he was high enough, back to the American lines he flew, dropped into the coop there, and delivered the word which saved the battalion. Although seriously wounded when flying over the enemy firing line, he never wavered in his flight. They nursed him back to health and General Pershing gave the little hero a silver medal. When he died, his body was mounted and placed in the National Museum in Washington, D.C
Note: The words in all Songs from the Book of Knowledge are excerpts taken from a 1939 Compton’s Pictured Encyclopedia and Fact-Index.
Songs from the Book of Knowledge: Airplane
The words in all Songs from the Book of Knowledge are excerpts taken from a 1939 Compton’s Encyclopedia. The music is by Erica Harris, mixed with Garage Band.
. . . . .
Never did things change so fast as in these days. Your grandfather’s father may have seen the coming of the steamboat, struggling along the river or lying with its nose against the banks. Your grandfather saw the early railway train, which came pushing proudly into the world at 20 miles an hour. Your father saw the motor-car riding the roads like a giant of power at a mile a minute. But you have seen a thing that clever men and wise men hardly dreamed of years ago; you have seen a thing that clever men scoffed at even when it first appeared – you have seen an airplane riding through the clouds!
In all the history of the world there has hardly been anything equal to that. Think of it in any way you like, and it must seem to you a miracle. Throw a stone up into the air and it falls down; throw a stream of water up and it comes back to earth; throw a feather up and, although it floats a little while on the wind, it soon glides back to the solid earth.
They fall, all of them, by what we call the law of gravitation, which means that earth pulls everything toward its center. A pebble rolls down hill; water runs to the lowest point. It is the pull of something in the mass of the earth that draws all things toward it as a magnet draws a needle. It will pull a flint down through a chalk bank if we give it time; it will pull down an overhanging tree if the tree is left long enough without support. This universal power of matter to attract other matter to it, the larger mass attracting a smaller, is one of the mysteries that no man understands.
And yet an airplane flies past a mile above our heads, so high that it looks like a bird, so beautiful that it looks as if Nature herself had made it, so confident of its power as it passes out of sight that it thrills a man to feel that he belongs to the race that made it. Now it is a speck! Soon our eyes will lose it, but we know that there is a man up there.