About me
Raised in the beautiful yet molten hellscape of sunny California, with a hardworking single mother and an older sister, in a low income household; I enjoyed spending my time in nature, as well as, focusing almost all of my energy into whatever my passion was at the time. I quickly learned, due to my circumstances, that I must be very determined in pursuing my dreams. It was a long and unusual journey that lead me to where I am today. Art and making art has always been my passion, but I had a few other odd pursuits in my life before diving into my art career.
For 14 years staring at a young age, I trained in martial arts, often for many hours a day. Eventually reaching the rank of 4th degree master in Tang Soo Do, under Grand Master Dennis Ichikawa and became one of his head instructors for a long stretch of time. I found that my most cherished aspect of martial arts was getting to create performances as part of the demonstration team. This made me realize I enjoyed the "Arts" part more than the "Martial" part of it all.
In the next chapter of my life, I found my self exploring the strange world of sideshow and circus arts. Starting in sideshow, I spent a few years training and performing all those crazy things you could imagine when you hear the word sideshow. Eating and breathing fire, walking on broken glass, laying on a bed of nails, etc. Through learning and performing these insane acts, I found my favorite; Juggling. As anticlimactic as it may sound to some, I eventually shifted from sideshow to circus arts, specializing in juggling.
Juggling may seem like a silly act to focus on when compared to some of the other stuff I was doing, but I still think juggling is one of the most intriguing, expansive, and creative fields out there. With one of the friendliest communities you could find (I would still encourage anyone to join it). For several years and many hours a day, I juggled. Going on to perform and teach as well; I even planned on attending a prestigious circus school. I hoped to one day find my way into some high end circus shows. That is until I once again realized, when it came to performance arts I enjoyed the "Arts" aspect more than "Performance" aspect. The creative freedom of juggling allured me most. Creating new tricks and routines was something I really loved, but I wasn't fond of the anxiety brought up by doing difficult tricks for a sea of strangers, hopefully without messing up.
So once again, I shifted gears and I found a place I finally felt quite comfortable. That was with drawing and story telling, a hobby I had enjoyed all along the way. Drawing brought the creativity I was always hungry for throughout my life, with minimal restrictions and not much of a need for live performance. So, at last, as a young adult I began to spend many hours, everyday, drawing and trying to bring to life the ideas in my mind. I was fortunate to find a job as an art teacher for multiple years and during this time I also started sharing my art journey online. This is when my ongoing personal world building project titled "Maze Dwellers" began its life. To my surprise, I quickly started to amass a large following of very kind folks who seemed to enjoy seeing and reading things from my dumb little world I was creating. 600+ drawings later with now 100k+ supporters of my work online, I have been very lucky to have had the opportunity to do tons of commission work and wonderful freelance projects. On going, I am very excited for what the future holds.
Though I am still early on in my life and career, I feel so fortunate to have experienced such unique worlds and to have met so many kind people who've helped me immensely along the way. I am happy to say, I believe the life I have lived so far has given me a neat perspective and flourished creativity when approaching my art and design. Still, I feel I have a lot to learn and countless plans for my own projects but I know that I have what it takes. My hope now is to continue finding opportunities to be an integral part of art teams, and bring more fantastic magic worlds to life!
Thank you for taking the time to get to know me a bit better by reading some of my story!