Biography
"...the most important message we can learn from creative people: how to find purpose and enjoyment in the chaos of existence." - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi from his book, "Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention."
Eric's firm, Exhibit A Design Group, embodies this notion of Csikszentmihalyi's that teaches us to allow for uncertainty and surprise in the work that we do. Eric understands that to be successful in any creative field, we have to believe in our craft and that it will serve us through a process where his drawings, ideas, shapes, forms and environmental artwork, can take wildly surprising paths. As a designer, he's challenged with making ideas, content, the variables in human development and learning tangible, physical, visual, safe, durable, intelligent and beautiful.
Ok, no problem. You'll have it tomorrow.
All that said, Eric's accomplishments with meeting these challenges have resulted in 16 years of excellent exhibitions and interpretive products to be found across the United States and in europe. With a BID from Pratt Institute in New York, and graduate studies in Early Childhood Development from Bank Street College of Education, Eric has devoted his career to exacting the missions, visions, creative passions and scholarship of his clients - through creative processes and his own "chaotic" ideas - into top-notch exhibitions. He has presented and conducted workshops in exhibition planning and design for organizations including The British Interactive Group, The Museum Education Roundtable and the Association of Children's Museums. Eric teaches graduate courses in exhibition design and development, graphic design, computer systems and thesis at Pratt Institute and the Bank Street College of Education. Eric's work has won recognition for the American Association of Museum and the Association of Children's Museums, Print Magazine and the Art Director's Society in New York. He has been fortunate over the years to create exhibitions for clients including the Georgia Children's Museum, the National Museum of the American Indian, The Lied Discovery Children's Museum, The George Washington Carver National Monument, Johnstown Area Heritage Association, Brooklyn Children's Museum, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Cumberland Island National Seashore, the Washita and Monocacy National Battlefields, Crater Lake National Historic Site, the Irish Children's Museum and others.
With Exhibit A Design Group, Eric will continue to work with some of the most creative and scholarly professionals and organizations the field has to offer, and will continue to teach, enable, learn from and create, innovative exhibitions within a team-based process that is directed, outcome-oriented, as well as informed by interpretive content and current understandings in human development .
Oh, and yes, employing his mastery in the peak creative element known as chaos.