Texas, Baker grew up in Ventura before studying art in France. Eventually, he moved to Ethiopia to work for Emperor Haile Selassie to help develop the country’s art education program. Along the way, he got married and started a


family. Thirty-five years ago he returned to the South Coast, moved into his house in Carpinteria’s Rincon Point neighborhood and began teaching art at Santa Barbara High School. Eventually, his art career took off and he stopped teaching to focus on painting and exhibiting his work, travel- ing the globe in the process. Now Baker spends his time sketching shore birds, observing strange insects, tending his garden, all the while marveling at his luck at being able to live near one of “most magnificent shores on earth.” If painters navigate life with colors, shapes,


form and composition, then Baker’s life has been a journey through a beautiful explosion of flow- ers, wild animals and tropical light, all recorded on canvas. Through it all, his home and garden at Rincon have been an anchor. With a view of the sea from one side and the mountains on the other, Baker’s house is the thematic ground zero for both his painting and his life. His paintings hanging on


ABOVE, “Morocco,” 18” x 20” RIGHT, “Blue Elephant,” 24” x 36”


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