I sat in a 8:00am World history class doodling a weird monster in one of my folder dividers, I was 16 and I had just lost my father. Id spend most of my time in class drawing and disassociating, trying to escape my reality. On this particular morning, I drew a weird monster that scared my classmate that was sitting next to me. “Oh my god that looks so crazy”, I looked at her and laughed. I thought that was cool, that she was so weirded out by it ya know? I wanted to make it more weird, so I kept drawing. After that, I kept making more weird drawings in that same kind of style. I was then introduced to the works of Gris Grimly when a few friends of mine and I stumbled upon our school library by accident, it was a newly built school so we had never gone into the library before. I ended up checking out Gris Grimly’s Illustrated book “Tales of mystery and Madness” written by Edgar Allan Poe. I fell in love with his work and decided that I wanted to get into Illustration from then on.
My grades were too awful to apply for any traditional college, I struggled my entire academic career with a learning disability and I had failed most of my classes. After my father passed I had a mental breakdown in my Chemistry class, I felt overwhelmed with academics and the constant fear that I would become a failure if I didn’t get into a good college. I had this love for art that I couldn’t explain and I already knew what I wanted to do ever since I found that book. But, we had all these teachers telling us what we should do and what we shouldn’t do, of all the bad things that could happen if we didn’t pick the right path, I was severely depressed teenager filled with fear.
I decided to attend Santa Monica College and take some art classes there, I began to work on my art style, build a website and sharing my artwork online. I met other artists and not too long after I began to sell my work at events with other artists. I worked some jobs while still going to school, one of those jobs was working for The Hammer Museum. A huge dream come true, I had the privilege to be around art all day. I learned so much about Galleries and how they are run, I was exposed to new artists and I made so many new friends that I still speak to this day. Working at The Hammer fueled my love of art and my desire to become a full time artist event more. Though my time at Santa Monica was coming to an end, I had reapplied to Otis College of Art and Design for their Illustration program….and I was accepted.