WHERE IT ALL HAPPENS
From the moment I started my first piece until now, my studio space has been a huge part of the process. For me, time, space and movement all connect in that sacred place.
Since 2012 I’ve had 13 studios of my own and occasionally painted at a few friend’s spaces. Each place lent a unique element that inspired some aspect of the paintings that came out of that time period. 2014 was a bad year all around as I broke my back and began a long period of recovery, physical therapy and rehabilitation. Prior to the accident, I was working out of my townhome in Toluca Lake CA. This was the smallest and least inspiring space I ever worked in. As a result, I don’t feel my best work came from that time or space.
In 2015, “the come back” wasn’t as strong as I had hoped. It took everything I had to pick myself up and go back to once familiar movements that now felt strange, muscle memories that had faded and a body that didn’t respond as it once had.
Flash forward to 2020. I was renovating a studio in Allentown PA. renting a studio in Jersey City, working out of a mentors studio in Flatbush Brooklyn and traveling between the East and West coasts. Pandemic struck. I could no longer travel and had to let my spaces go. I had to scale everything down to be able to work from a small loft in Los Angeles. Not my favorite work but my style shifted and the technique had to change a bit. I had less space to freely move and dance, but I continued to paint through the pain.
2021 has brought new beginnings, a new perspective and true to form, a new studio space. Relocated to the Pacific Northwest, I’m now dancing on canvas with a view of the Evergreens.
Until now, my first studio - the brewery in DTLA - was always my favorite space. It was where it all began, where I began, where I realized that if I gave everything I had to my work, it would carry me to a long and rewarding career. Back then, I didn’t know how far I’d get or where I’d land.
9 years later, I’ve landed in a foreign land (well, foreign to me) known as the San Juan Islands. I never imagined, I’d be here, surrounded by the ocean and so much staggering natural beauty. I never thought this would be the studio that I will probably have until the end of my career. I couldn’t ask for anything more. It’s magic.