Transcript :I remember turning my head upside down in my parents’ car when I was very small and seeing how the lights would shwoo, shwoo, shwoo, go by. And I would say ‘Oom the light, oom the light, oom the light’. And it was like my little game with my mother and she always used to say, “That was your first word, Steven, ‘light’.”
I remember this statistic that people fear losing their eyesight more than they fear getting cancer. It’s something that’s so terrifying to people and it is terrifying. It’s completely terrifying.
I was 23 when I was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa. It’s also called tunnel vision.
Just imagine like looking through a little straw, okay? If you, if you have something big and you look at it through a straw, you only see a small part of it, right?. But if the object keeps moving backwards, you see more of it.
This is a painting but I did the painting as a negative so this is actually a negative print.
Many years ago I studied painting. I wish that I could see well enough to, to do painting but I really can’t anymore so I had to change and adapt. Now I do the light painting, which is similar. You paint with the flashlight.
I’m kind of glad that I was forced to adapt. When you’re faced with challenges you get some things that are surprising and unexpected.
Over time it gets worse and worse so I deal with it.
Okay yes.
No coupon today.
You don’t have any?
Oh.
I recently had to adjust. I had to have people come in and help me now clean and do my laundry and things I can’t do anymore because I can’t see well anymore.
So I’ll be right back.
Okay Jean, thank you.
I’m turning more towards writing now because I have to right? I have to abandon the visual in a way.
That’s not it, period. Later, comma.
With writing I’m at my first day of school.
and hope that I can give the world something of value one day. I’m really not good at it. I’m just completely in the waters. It’s not like photography. It’s different.
And I just have to adjust to the changes and hoping that I can give the world something of value one day.

more info:As an artist, Steve Erra is used to adapting. But Erra’s adaptation isn’t based on new trends or technology: it’s based on his eyesight, which Erra is quickly losing.Ever since he was a teenager, Erra knew he wanted to be a visual artist. But two months before his graduation from Parsons School of Design, Erra got a worrying diagnosis: a degenerative eye disease called retinitis pigmentosa, also known as tunnel vision.More than 30 years later, Erra’s eyesight has diminished to a tiny straw-like hole. Once a painter, Erra had to turn to light painting, a photo technique that uses flash lights and laser beams to highlight objects in total darkness. Although Erra may never become totally blind, he is turning towards writing as a way of holding onto the visual world.