I think it was in high school when I realized that the visual arts was something that I wanted to pursue.  I owe a great thanks to some very special teachers that helped me to realize that the arts are very important to a great deal of people and that it is very much worth exploring.  So I decided that going to art school would be my ideal path, and wanted to work on developing a professional career as an artist.  At first it was difficult for me to decide what I wanted to go to school for.  At the time, I was torn between becoming a biology/earth science major vs. the visual arts.  But the two can harmoniously become intertwined.  Discovering my voice as an artist happened during a forty-day cross country road trip where I visited the mysterious southwestern deserts, and many of the national parks. I simply was overwhelmed and saw it as a limitless source of creative inspiration.

Describe your driving force or motivation to create artwork.

Usually going to galleries and seeing other artist's work helps to provide me with the desire to create my own work, especially when you can see that they are really passionate and that it is something that they really care about.  There is so much going on out there and so much to be inspired by.  More importantly though, I think what drives and motivates artists is usually a very personal and internal phenomena that varies from artist to artist. From childhood, I have always felt this primal urge and its something that just comes naturally, but is always begging to be paid attention to. Ignoring it and not allowing it to manifest can have negative consequences.

How do you grow and further challenge yourself as an artist?

I'm always on the hunt for new and non-traditional materials to work with and that in itself is a fun challenge.  It keeps me occupied and then I can experiment with the materials, which is so much fun!  The biggest challenge for me, as of now, is trying to strike a balance between making enough money to live, while trying to support and find the time to develop what I need to be an artist. Most importantly though, is while doing the research and experimenting, wonderful, unexpected things tend to happen. That in itself is so fulfilling and leads you in the right directions, sometimes with unexpected results. These are the experiences that allow me to grow and present challenges to me.

What inspires you?

I can probably can go on and on forever.  I just have to say that I am inspired by so much in this world.  Nature, life, and science are my three main inspirations and it is a never ending resource for ideas and usually generates the basis for many of my works.