I grew up in Indiana, where my high school art teacher Al Jacquay planted something that stuck with me: “Never lose your creative eye.” I carried that advice to Purdue, where I earned a degree in Computer Science but made sure to take at least one art class every semester.

After moving to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1999, I built a career as a software engineer in the video game industry—a field that satisfies the logical side of my brain while the creative side keeps pulling me toward the art studio. I continued studying art at the Academy of Art College, UC Berkeley, and Mission College, each one deepening my practice in different ways.

Art isn’t my occupation, but it’s the work that feels most like my own.