My love for art began young with comic books and Disney animated movies.

This love for art was welcomed and supported by my parents through encouragement, being bought countless supplies, and private art instruction.

I was exposed early to a multitude of types of art. Encouragement was ever present for me to experience art from different historical time periods, different cultures and different types of art. Although, I always have preferred art from the Renaissance and Baroque periods as well as comic book type illustration.

For my undergraduate degree I obtained a BFA at the Ringling School of Art and Design (recently re-named the Ringling College of Art and Design) in Sarasota, FL while majoring in illustration.

Since graduating I have taught art in the Florida public school system as well as created graphic design and illustration for a variety of commissions. Most commonly I have created for the purpose of marketing and advertising.

Both schools I was hired at eventually lost funding and had art classes removed from the schools entirely. I since moved to Tallahassee, Florida where a large majority of my family resides.

Not finding luck in the marketing/advertising or museum market I decided, with the support (permission) of my beautiful wife of course, to go back to school and obtain my MFA.

I am currently working full time throwing stock at a grocery store during the graveyard shift (2:30am - 12pm) to pay the bills while in school, but am hoping a museum position or teaching position will open up soon.

My hope is to get back into teaching. I enjoyed the interaction with the students, parents, and fellow teachers and thoroughly miss everything about that environment.

I plan on shortly after obtaining my MFA to go for my Ph.D. degree in art history. I would want my doctoral degree to focus on the renaissance and/or baroque periods.

I aspire to eventually be a college professor teaching illustration while illustrating Caldecott winning children's books. But I want that to come after a long time in the industry working as a character designer for either movies or video games or both. Hey, dream big right?

(this brief autobiography was created for my online profile for grad school at AAU)