My Library

I had met Zelda in early 1968 when her boss, Mr. Reed Erickson, a millionaire, had come to my apartment to view a large painting which Dr. Jean Houston had recommended he should see. At that time, Houston was famous for research in psychedelic experiencing. I had met Houston in 1967 when I had traveled to the Edgar Cayce Foundation (The Association for Research and Enlightenment) in Virginia Beach, Virginia. I had spent three weeks there on vacation from my job at the U.N. to research the famous seer's "readings." Houston was deeply interested in art, and in "psychedelic art" which had a brief fashionability about then. She was preparing a book on the subject [Houston, Jean & Masters, Robert E. L. PSYCHEDELIC ART. New York, 1968, Grove Press.] She had been somewhat impressed with slides of my paintings which I had brought along. Many thought that my paintings were "psychedelic," but I explained that they were not painted as a result of such influence, but were "occult" and "metaphysical." In any event, Mr. Reed Erickson eventually came along. He was a small man with a mustache and elegantly suited out. We talked, and he bought the large, three-paneled painting in gorgeous colors and gold leaf which I had entitled "Requiem for the Death of a Man." He bargained me down to $1,000 and said his secretary would send a check. His "secretary" turned out to be Mrs. Zelda Suplee, actually the Director of The Erickson Educational Foundation.