William Zimmerman

I was born in Sacramento and spent my first 26 years there. It feels like I always had a pencil or brush in my hands ready to draw or paint. After high school, I went to Sacramento City College and California State University at Sacramento. I had very good teachers at both institutions including Oliver Jackson, Joan Moment, Carlos Villa, and Joseph Raffael from whom I learned to look within for inspiration. After college, I moved to San Francisco where I continued to make art in my home studio. I produced many studies and drawings of handheld fans, figures of many sizes and shapes, and abstracts. I retired from the working world in 2016 and moved to Palm Springs with a renewed sense of working at painting. The desert served as a great inspiration, leading to paintings in acrylic of geometric forms constructed of small circles and dots. In 2018, I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. in 2019 I started practicing yoga and started a series of seven paintings based on the concept of chakras. I spent almost three years completing this project. In 2024, I started a series of paintings about what it feels like to have Parkinson’s from the inside out. I initially did six paintings on canvas but moved into doing 9” x 12” paintings on paper with only two colors of acrylic paint, Red Oxide and Buff Titanium. In 2025, I moved to New Jersey and have continued this series which now contains 70 paintings. I began writing about each painting in an attempt to give further emotional details. I am continuing the written aspect until each of the 70 pieces has a written component.