Born in Whittier, CA on November 15th 1973, I had actively drawn throughout my early years. As a child I lived in Whittier, California, but spent much of my time in Santa Ynez. I took every opportunity to visit the Cody Gallery in Los Olivos so that I could study the works of Eyvind Earle. The Santa Ynez area itself is conducive to artistic inspiration, although I was not consciously aware of this when I was young. Spending weekdays living at our family-owned tractor dealership afforded me time to contemplate and study my self-expression, as I was not distracted by typical after-school playmate/neighborhood friends. While the lack of childhood social experience has hindered my personal development in some ways, it was invaluable to my development as an artist. Time alone was best spent drawing and designing structures with Legos. Art is like any other skill: It improves with practice, and I had a lot of practice before I ever thought of myself as an artist.

   Recognizing my artistic tendencies, my mother sought artists local to our two residencies to tutor me. In Whittier I studied under Denis MacGonagle, who's love of color clashed with my more mechanical thinking at that time. Looking back, I missed out on a lot by not being as open-minded as I am now. I wonder how much of Dennis' skill was absorbed through osmosis while I was trying to fight his influence. In Santa Ynez, I studied pencil rendering under Liz Kyle and Ben Mead. Kyle was responsible for first instructing me in technical inking, and coached me to a double-victory in the Vandenberg Air Force Art Contest when I was thirteen.

   After Carden Grade School, I attended Whittier Christian Junior High, where I had my first school art classes - taught by Mrs. Langen. Her family also owned the local Whittier Art Store, where I was to purchase most of my art supplies years later in college. Most of my attention in junior high was paid to Robotech and my love of aviation. I made a couple close friends who had similar interests, but different styles. We have been good friends since and have nurtured each others' talents in a symbiotic manner. I learned that while formal instruction is often valuable, more can be learned through self examination and interaction with friends with whom one has good communication.

   The idea of self-teaching was further enforced in high school. I started Whittier Christian High School and finished my freshman year, but my parents transferred me to Don Bosco Technical Institute for my remaining high school years. As the "Technical" name implies, Bosco had seven "shops" that each covered a specific field. I chose Drafting And Design, because I enjoyed drawing and aircraft design - and because it was the closest class to art, which was not offered. My best friend and I were constantly getting into trouble for drawing female figures (when I wasn't rendering military aircraft), which began my experience in administrative persecution.

   I had been planning to attend Harvey Mudd to pursue a career in aeronautical engineering, but I reached a personal plateau at calculus. This also ruled out my backup plan of attending Cal Poly San Luis Obispo to pursue an architecture degree. I decided to attend Whittier College and enrolled with the idea of getting a Political Science degree to become a military analyst (which had been a longtime hobby). At Whittier I met Tom Rice, a painting instructor. He was a significant influence on me because he was able to strike the right balance between educational pressure and freedom. I learned many different techniques from him, but was also allowed freedom to explore these techniques in my own way. He was my most influential teacher.

   Unfortunately, he was not able to remain at Whittier. For the last 3 years of college I had three liberal feminist art professors - at the same time, with no counter-balancing perspectives. David Sloan was the sculpture professor, and I often sought refuge outside of my primary medium under him. But I could not avoid the fact that I was by this time destined to be a painter. So I fought back against what I considered to be close-minded viewpoints as I thought best - by continuing to paint. Unfortunately, during critiques my painting professors spent considerably more time criticizing my subject matter (mostly women) than my technique (which would have been more helpful). On the positive side, I quickly learned how to deal with harsh criticism, which has helped me steer my own course since.

   During my last three years of college I was almost entirely self taught; reading everything I could on artists I whose styles I found interesting, and incorporating what I could into my art. I learned a great deal from the work of Kandinski, Nagel, Frazetta, Mondrian, Monet, Renoir, Stella and Frank Lloyd Wright in particular. They were all strong influences on my development as an artist and my conceptualization of Formal Impressionism.

   When I graduated I still had widely varying styles, but from this variety was generated paintings that would later form themselves into what I now call Formal Impressionism. I was turned away by The Art Center of Pasadena's graduate program, being told that I had not yet developed a marketable style or signature trait. So I worked sporadically as a graphic artist, continued developing my painting style and had showings as time allowed. By 1997 the number of my classic impressionist paintings was declining dramatically. More of my work was Formal Impressionist. By 1998 I had realized what my work was telling me, and decided to shelve all traditional impressionist work in favor of specifically nurturing this emerging style.

   In the late '90s I was also getting in touch with my love of the automobile and my fascination with first-person-perspective online games. I entered MotorTrend's International Design Contest in 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2002 - winning the inaugural contest and placing well amid fierce competition the following years. At the same time, I became somewhat obsessed with an online game called Tribes. By deconstructing the game's code, and with the help of a friend, I wrote and marketed a pair of very successful "mods", complete with additional game environments (maps) and player uniforms (skins). The second of these mods, hvMechWarrior (a synthesis of Tribes and Battletech universes), was so successful that it was hosted on as many as ten separate servers, and my partner and I were flown to Tribes Gala '99 by HomeLAN to advertise the mod.

   From 2001 through 2004 I actively marketed my paintings in galleries and the annual Orange County Fair's fine arts competition. Public reception of Formal Impressionism was strong, but sales were not.

   I bought my first BMW in late 2004, and though a circuitous chain of events this led to my being named Creative Director of BMS, a BMW tuning and race car fabrication shop in Santa Ana, CA. In that position I helped shape product designs, created all company graphics and designed a couple of race car liveries and special product proposals. That company ceased operation in 2009, but I am still active in the BMW community as an artist, photographer, product designer and tester. My most well-known project is Scatha, my 2007 Z4 M Coupe.