I have always been drawn to art, especially detailed miniature pieces since I was a child. I loved to draw, paint, sculpt with polymer clay, always wanting my creations to be as beautiful, detailed, and realistic as possible. After I graduated from High school I enrolled in the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design with a Focus in Painting and Drawing. At the time I had invested a great amount of time developing the technical skill to paint highly detailed and often photo realistic portraits and figurative works. But the majority of my peers and mentors began to put pressure on me to focus less on the craft and formal element of my work and to construct highly conceptualized pieces and narratives that always felt forced and dare I say quite often a bit pretentious to me. By the time I had graduated in 2010 and was attempting to gain recognition in the contemporary art world, I already felt out of place and beaten down. I felt rejected by the art world for my desire for aesthetics and beauty instead of over-conceptualized gimmicks.
At this time I decided to step back from the gallery scene and work more with my father, a self taught and highly talented custom cabinet maker of over 35 years experience. As a few years passed and I began to developed more understanding and skill with wood, I slowly began to rediscover my love of form and design for design sake, I relished the joy of making a table that could exist and be beautiful without the need to justify its beauty conceptually. Still I didn't feel completely fulfilled, the process of building cabinets is cumbersome and filled with tedious measurements and limitations by location and functionality, so I kept trying to come up with something new to design, something fresh, and I could have as much creativity and freedom to explore form and design as I wanted too.
Then in 2015 years ago I began to learn about and experiment with inlay techniques and immediately fell in love with inlaying turquoise into wood. At first I just made a few earrings as gifts for my wife and some friends, but continued to make more and more, soon I was captivated by the limitless combinations of colors, textures, and patterns made available through such wonderful natural materials, and eventually began to make a small side income from my pieces. Then in 2017 I decided to take a leap of faith and work in my wood design studio full time. Nothing in my life has quite fulfilled me creatively as these works have, and I feel like I have won the lottery to be able to do something I love this much for a living. I am continuing to devote as much energy and work as I can into this chapter of my art career and I look forward to seeing how many unique pieces I can create.