“Eventually, there were no guidelines on me as an artist as opposed to a designer.”
How did you first get started?
I’ve always had this urge to want to make things with my hands from an early age. Just building things and being reckless with a hammer — from random structures and forts in my room, different drawings and just trying to create things and have fun.
In school, I took the standard art classes which were entertaining, but when things really clicked for me was in high school — I had this graphic arts program that I enrolled in and that was when my eyes really opened to all these different mediums and when computers were really starting to become a thing.
I started creating graphics on a computer and got access to a photo studio with screen-printing and all sorts of printmaking and resources. That was huge for me to connect the dots and I started making t-shirt graphics, which is full circle to projects I work on currently.
So that was the jumping off point for me, where luckily early on, I was able to see a real end game where I thought, ‘oh, I can be a graphic artist.’ It’s a real position that I can wrap my head around, as opposed to the open-ended thing, where I would just be an artist and make paintings.
I was really pragmatic about it, where this is something that I could do for a living and still have this artistic expression.
Do you remember what age this was?
High school, but after that I started to take design programs in community college for a year. At that point, I moved out to California with a friend who was just getting out of the Navy. He said he was going to live in San Diego and I thought, ok here’s my opportunity to piggyback on his plans and get out to the West Coast.
Once there, I attended some trade school programs. I was in a mode then because my friend was in college, I kind of just felt that I needed to be too. Meanwhile, I was working at a printing company laying out business cards and shit like that. And while there, we started printing catalogs for the skate company, Tum Yeto, which is the parent company of Foundation, Toy Machine and all these legendary brands.
All these experiences are very layered, but its cool to see how a lot of things are connected and how some things I didn’t even think are related to where I am now.
Looking back, what are some things that have been constant throughout — whether music, sports, etc?
Sports and music have always been this thread, for sure, but it’s kind of what I was saying about wanting to make stuff with my hands. I don’t know if it just comes from being restless and thinking about things and wanting to see them come to life.
Working in the skate industry, I was exposed to a really close knit creative community and all these cool styles. It was the complete opposite from college, there were no rules and you were just putting out this raw creative output.
I started to think, ‘I don’t need to choose a font, I can draw something by hand it becomes your own and has more personality and soul to it.’
I worked my way up to art director at multiple brands. When I was at that role, I wanted to draw everything and have a really gritty feel on all the graphics and ads — that mentality continued into all my work after that — even early on when I was trying to separate my design brain and artist brain thinking that they were conflicting, it always came back. Eventually, there were no guidelines on me as an artist as opposed to a designer, it’s just me as a creative person making work.
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wazup.