I started drawing just like any other kid, with crayons and construction paper. I won a poster contest in kindergarten, it was about fire safety: Stop, Drop, and Roll. I think the minor detail that clinched it was adding motion lines for the “Roll” part. I won another poster contest that year (this time about energy conservation) and since then, every gift I ever got was art related. I’m kidding (sort of) but it was the tipping point where I became known as an artist among my peers, teachers, and family.
I felt a lot of pressure in that. I spent a lot of time trying to master the styles of well-known artists. After many years of low-level production with high-level anxiety, I decided to risk putting paint to canvas in my own style — to defend its merits, rather than to defend what could never have lived up to my vision of the world, much less the masters I was trying to impersonate. Don’t ask me to define it, I’m just doing what looks and feels good.
