Born May 14, 1949 in Hollywood, California, to sculptor Verna Lebow, MFA, and surgeon Paul Kaufman, MD, Alicia grew up in a bi-lingual, intellectual, artistic, musical and politically active household.

Almost 10. March, 1959. Photo by Paul Kaufman MD

A passionate follower of her muse since early childhood, Alicia was influenced and acknowledged by three major figures in art, music and literature by her mid-teens. Her multi-instrumental music studies lead her to learn open-tuned guitar improvisation from John Fahey, then married to Alicia's cousin Janet Lebow. A summer scholarship to Otis Art Institute enabled Alicia to study with Charles White III in 1965. While working as a graphic layout artist at the infamous Los Angeles Free Press in 1966, Alicia submitted a piece of writing that Joan Didion selected as the quintessential example of alternative press writing for an article titled "Alicia and the Underground Press" in her Points West column in the Saturday Evening Post.

At seventeen, after six weeks at San Francisco State College, Alicia began a productive career as a free-lance artist/writer/musician. She sang and played guitar at coffee houses in the Bay Area, wrote songs, drew reams of line drawings, worked occasionally as a cook, and attended a semester at San Francisco Fashion Institute (long enough to learn pattern drafting). In 1967 she moved to the houseboats off Sausalito where she adopted collage artist Jean Varda as a mentor. At eighteen, she worked out of her own art studio in the Industrial Center Building in Sausalito.

Easter at Wheeler Ranch, 1970 (photo by Sylvia Clarke Hamilton). The instrument is a Fender electric bass neck on a 12 string guitar.

At nineteen Alicia moved to the Wheeler Ranch Commune in Sonoma County, California and began writing, illustrating and designing Living On The Earth, a handwritten guide to bohemian country living illustrated with line drawings, initially as an informational pamphlet for fellow commune dwellers. Published in 1970 by The Bookworks in Berkeley, the book sold out its first edition of 10,000 copies in two weeks. Bennett Cerf, then president of Random House, purchased the rights to publish it for Random House.

The 1971 Random House Vintage Books edition sold over 350,000 copies, becoming the first paperback book ever on the New York Times Bestseller List. It was favorably reviewed in Time, New York Times Review of Books, Publishers Weekly, the Whole Earth Catalog, Library Journal, Christian Science Monitor, Look, and dozens of other publications, and Alicia was recognized as a Woman of the Year in 1971 by Mademoiselle Magazine.

Over the next three years she created seven other illustrated books, five of which were published by Soshisha, Ltd. in Japan.  (Living on the Earth has remained in print continuously in Japanese since 1972, and Being of the Sun was re-released by Soshisha in March 2007.)  In 1974, Alicia went on a book tour to Japan, stopped on the way back in Maui, and stayed to learn traditional Hawaiian slack key guitar.

Alicia dancing in Haleakala volcano, Maui, 1976. Photo by artist Andrew Annenberg

Over her long residence in Maui, Alicia studied Hawaiian music, worked as an underwater photographer, taught yoga, performed extensively as a vocalist/guitarist, had several one-woman art shows, taught art, music, writing and dance at two alternative schools, and illustrated books. Over eleven years she produced 3000 weddings as the owner of a legendary Maui wedding company, where she also functioned as floral designer and wedding musician. In 1999 she sold the company, produced a CD of her original psych folk songs from the late '60s and early '70s, Music From Living on the Earth, and toured the USA for eight months telling original comedy stories, singing original songs and promoting the 30th Anniversary Edition of Living on the Earth.  The CD garnered an Album Pick on allmusic.com.

Following the tour, she produced a second CD of original and historic Hawaiian songs, Living in Hawaii Style, toured in Hawaii and California, got airplay in both states, and headlined in the Big Island Slack Key Guitar Festival. Both CDs were released in Japan by EM Records in September 2005.

Alicia released her third CD, What Living's All About, 12 jazz and blues songs, 10 of them original, in May 2006. The CD was one of 12 Editor's DIY Picks in the May 2007 issue of Performing Songwriter Magazine, and the opening song, Floozy Tune, placed in the Top 20 Finalists in the Jazz Category of the 2007 Unisong International Songwriting Contest.

Alicia serenades legendary herbalist Juliette de Bairacli-Levy at the New England Womens Herbal Conference, August, 2000.

Living on the Earth was published in its 4th Edition in 2003 by Gibbs Smith, Publisher. 

In October 2006, Alicia toured Japan for a month as the guest of Artist Power Bank, an environmental arts organization in Tokyo, performing eight concerts.  Fashion designer Aya Noguchi created a line of clothing celebrating Living on the Earth for release in September 2007. 

Alicia returned to Japan for a fifteen concert tour from April 26 to June 19, 2007, which included being the subject of a documentary on Asahi Broadcasting Station. 

She returns to Japan for a gallery show of 30 of the original drawings from Living on the Earth, at Artist Power Bank's Jingumae Lab in Shibuya,Tokyo, and an eight concert musical tour, from April 10 to June 2, 2008.  Aya Noguchi has released a new line of clothing featuring illustrations from Being of the Sun, which will be modelled at the gallery opening.

Alicia is currently based in Los Angeles, writing and illustrating a treatment for a children's animated television series and preparing music for an Americana/world music CD.

Alicia performing on the Big Island, May 2002, photographed by Ingrid Dennerlein.

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