Erin Mitchell Speed grew up in Atlanta, Georgia & Fairhope, Alabama. She is the product of a very creative family dating back to her Great-grandmother who loved photography and was a very talented painter.

Erin, known to many as Mer, short for Mermade, is also a talented woodworker and painter. "I love to paint on wood and also plywood of all things. After Hurricane Ivan, my power was out for 12 days, so I resorted to painting on the plywood I had used to board up my windows. I could have continued to paint on canvases, but at the time it just made me feel more creative and also more driven to use the resources available at the time."

In the past few years, Erin has made pine farmhouse tables with fantastic turned legs that are handturned in Georgia. The tables are available in a variety of sizes and can be made to order. She usually leaves the tables unpainted to reflect the beauty of the pine but has recently started painting them and embellishing them with her signature black and white checkerboard on the edges. " The checkerboard thing is just a quirky little touch I picked up to make my work stand out. I use it on everything, not only on the edges of my tables and paintings, but sometimes integrated into the work itself."

Erin is a very interesting person and never seems to be short on great ideas to make her work stand out. Some of her items are quite the conversation pieces. She has an interesting outlook on life and was quoted here as saying "I keep life interesting for myself and my children by not allowing any 'emotional constipation' to clog our lives. We move forward with each new morning encouraging each other to never look back. Living in the past only brings the past into your future." "Who wants that?"

You can find Erin at some of the local art shows or showing her vast collection at her home in Lillian, Alabama where she currently works and resides with her three children.