Portrait # 3 - Erika Letten
Erika and I grew very close very fast. It was my junior year in college, and I was starting to really get into my painting classes. Once you get into the upper level classes of your particular area of study, you naturally will tend to have classes with the same people over and over. In this case, however, Erika and I hadn't yet had any coinciding courses. We sat next to each other on the very first day, still a little unsure of each other, but feeling perfectly okay with it. Besides, it was only the first day of class, and if I ended up not liking her, I could just sit somewhere else the next time, right? Once class got started, however, something that Erika said made me laugh so hard that I nearly fell off of my seat. I looked at her and said, "Me and you are going to be best friends." Sure enough, as the semester progressed, we began to become attached at the hip. Our professor would refer to us at twins, or sometimes as partners in crime. (My favorite was "Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum"). We grew even closer the next semester, during which we had class together every day of the week. And here we are, one year later, still hilariously inappropriate, still ridiculously frank, and of course, still fulfilling my prediction.
Here are a few more shots of her:
