erica harrold designs -

Erica Harrold is an artist, a dancer and a political alchemist.

Erica showed considerable artistic talent as a child, yet pursued her masculine side through athletics and academia. She was the type of child who enjoyed the shoe box more than the shoes and would spend hours creating hand-drawn activity books to occupy her energetic, younger sister. Her older sister attended Otis Institute of Art and Parsons School of Design in Los Angeles and would return home to San Diego on weekends stressed by the demands of the fashion design curriculum. Erica, a high school student at the time, would happily tackle her sister's homework of drawings and sketches while her older sister calmed her nerves by cleaning the tile grout in the kitchen.

Erica graduated with honors from the University of California, San Diego with a BA in Political Science and a minor in Japanese Studies. A life-changing trip to Hiroshima, while studying in Japan during her junior year of college, compelled her to work for an anti-nuclear, anti-militarization, anti-war organization. After eight years of ‘fighting injustice' and organizing others to ‘right the wrongs of the world' she took a break to foster her artistic talents. Japanese calligraphy, ink brush painting, bead and wire sculpture, as well as papermaking and bookmaking were a few of the crafts she practiced.

Her profession in politics ultimately led her to work with the almost-priest, sometimes Buddhist, consummate California politician—Jerry Brown—then Mayor of Oakland. She helped create and administer the City of Oakland's Craft & Cultural Arts Department. Erica was exposed to a vast array of intellectuals and artists during her four year tenure with Jerry. The demands of working with him also pushed her to discover the rigors and joys of yoga and dance.

To maintain her sanity and inherent belief in the goodness of humans, Erica became a devout practitioner of yoga and authentic movement dance. Her bhakti nature was revealed in kirtan (devotional chanting) and cultivated through friendships with Vedic scholar, Dr. Robert Svoboda and jyotishi Bette Timm of Sonoma, California. Erica has also had the honor of assisting Vinn Marti, founder of the Soul Motion practice, and master Soul Motion teacher Zuza Engler in workshops and workscholar months at The Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California. She is eternally grateful to Zuza and Vinn for introducing her to her Teacher –the quiet of her own soul.

Aptly characterized as an artist that “won't make anything bigger than her head,” Erica took up the intricacies of seed beads shortly after meeting the Love of Her Life – Walter—in 2003. He not only encouraged her artistic endeavors but joined her in the joy of art-making. She now creates individual works of art as a devotional practice.