Who We Are

This is Eric. Eric was a son, a brother, a friend, a gamer, an incredible artist, and a person with epilepsy. He and his mother, Janet, passed away in June 2015, as a result of complications related to his epilepsy diagnosis, only months after the loss of his father. Steve, Janet, and Eric were all accomplished artists, and their loss left a hole in the St. Louis art community. It is from this tragedy that ART4Epilepsy was born.

Learn More

The Basics

ART4Epilepsy is a non-profit organization created to raise Awareness, provide Resources, and support the quest for new Treatments for individuals who are impacted by epilepsy. ART4Epilepsy is dedicated to the memory of Steve, Janet, and Eric, and to using art to raise funds for Awareness, Resources, and Treatment to support those living with Epilepsy.

Awareness

In our family experience with this disease, we did not know that Epilepsy can be accompanied by postictal psychosis, a rare symptom that affects roughly 5% of diagnosed individuals. We did not know that current treatments can eventually become ineffective or cause such a somnolent state in the individual that waking hours are nonproductive. We did not know that Epilepsy could be fatal.

Resources

Eric died as a result of epilepsy. What began with mild "zoning out" episodes at the age of 11 graduated over time to multiple tonic-clonic seizures a day. In his late teens, Eric began to experience violent postictal episodes after his more severe seizures. Due to the increasing frequency and severity of these events, Eric had to abandon his college career at the Kansas City Art Institute so that he could live at home again and have the support of his family. He did not qualify for ablative surgery as the risk of having a postictal episode during the procedure was simply too great. Even so, Eric and his parents bravely soldiered on in their search for effective therapy and resources that would allow Eric to live independently and function successfully.

Treatment

Despite these challenges, Eric continued to create amazing visual art. His preferred medium was paper and charcoal, and his sketches were incredible. His parents were artists as well. In addition to painting and drawing, his father, Steve, made beautiful sculptures from limestone and granite while his mother, Janet, created exquisite jewelry and pottery. It was while preparing for a family art show that Steve suddenly and unexpectedly died in his sleep. Seven months later, while trying to decrease dependence on heavy pharmaceutical seizure meds, Eric experienced a postictal psychosis episode during which he ended his mother's life and his own.