“My tipping point occurred when I met my high school mentor and art teacher, Mr. Worthington. He presented art, and the value of dedicating oneself to a rigorous discipline, as a portal to understanding and engaging a myriad of intersections that bond, unite, and transcend experience and awareness. In other words, Worthington could routinely present Rembrandt or Cezanne, link one or the other to the athleticism of the Olympics, and bundle it all into a poem by Dylan Thomas. He presented art as this all-inclusive arena of understanding and self actualization. I signed the dotted line and went all in.”

“I grew up in an artistic household. My mother is a stained glass artist, and my parents ran a stained glass business throughout my growing up. As a result, I've always has a special appreciation for the interaction of line and shape and the intersection of geometric and organic forms. Color and light and how they are manipulated have also always keenly interested me. I don't know that there has very been a time when others didn't refer to me as an artist, so I suppose the answer is always. I try to instill that same mindset into my students. If you are creating, you are an artist!”