My Journey
Finding Your Roots
Painting is just one of the many art forms I love to practice. I often tell people if they want improve their paintings, they should learn to dance. If they want to get better at dancing, try picking up an instrument. I feel the connection of every hobby or talent I have pursued in my life and how they have helped me grow as an individual.
Fire Dancing
When I was 18 I started to dance with fire and became very interested in performing this art form. I believe if you want to learn a new skill, you must practice every day, so I spun Poi for six years, imagining all the places it would take me as a professional performer. I learned to breathe fire safely and felt the energy that rises within you when you share your expression of dance to a crowd of people.
Live Painting
In 2019 I attended a music festival called Lightning in a Bottle in California, where I saw live painters for the first time in a concert setting. I watched an artist create a painting very quickly displaying fast geometric movements with a paint brush that I had never seen before. I asked him many questions about his work and he told me that live painting was part of his profession. I was very intrigued in his style of art and from that day, began to paint eight hours a day for the next two years. The display of speed and using various colors has always influenced what I create because I wanted to perform as a live painter as well.
Pottery
My Jr. Year of High School I took my first hand building ceramics class. I fell in love with creating and looked forward to making art every day. My senior year I enrolled in wheel throw and began to use the pottery wheel. Over the next four years, I enrolled in eight semesters of pottery and became a teacher assistant, helping others with advanced throwing techniques. The greatest lesson came from my second teacher who told me not to save a single pot until the last week of class. He told me that by the end of the semester, I would be able to create pots that were 10 times better than the first three months of the class, so I destroyed every pot I made on the wheel, focusing on improving my ability to create thinner and larger pieces. I observed how the students time and energy was divided into decorating their pots with carvings and glaze while I solely focused on how to create larger pots. By the end of my first college semester, I was able to create elegant abstract forms that were delicate with ease. I applied the same lesson when I began painting and painted over countless creations with white or black, simply to restart with a slight improvement in dexterity and understanding of how paint comes off the brush. This lesson in detachment is something I teach all my artist friends and I feel has been my greatest advantage.
BMX
Growing up playing competitive team sports, I was always frustrated when I felt like the team wasn't trying. I switched to BMX freestyle when I was 12 years old and felt a creative freedom that came from it. This was my first sport where I learned to play with fear and risk getting injured if you didn't land a trick. I broke my back when I was 15 years old riding bikes in a skatepark and knew instantly that I crashed because I was afraid. This injury inspired my curiosity to learn many new things once I recovered because I thought I wouldn't be able to walk again. I trained my body year after year to be stronger in order to support my weakened spine. I still loved to ride bikes but my injury made it impossible to improve my riding ability. Luckily, my friends and I were always coming up with series of tricks that would look good on film and I discovered how much I loved photography. I purchased a DSLR camera and learned to use Light Room photo editor to enhance my photos of the Milky Way. Every time I take a picture of a painting, Light Room allows me to see my work in a different way, often inspiring new color schemes and ideas.
Snowboarding
A friend of mine took me snowboarding for the first time when I was 19 and loved it so much I went every weekend. When I was 21, I moved to Truckee, CA to work at Sugar Bowl as a snowboard instructor. I have worked at a different resort every year since then, even traveling to work in Aspen, Colorado for a season. Moving away from my hometown really allowed me to grow as an individual and discover who I was around new faces. I felt such a powerful shift in my mind after the first year, I continued to work abroad every winter season in order to make new friends and experience different mountain resorts. The nature holds everything together for me, with every resort having their own incredible views and different scenery you can immerse yourself in when you explore the mountain.
Rock Climbing
My first job was working with kids at my local Rock Climbing Gym, beginning with birthday parties, working my way up to coaching and becoming a sales associate of their products. I coached rock climbing for five years and even got to work as a Team USA rock climbing coach. Teaching taught me to observe how I communicate with others in order to encourage them to overcome their fear of heights and trusting one another. It laid out an amazing foundation of psychology for me and awakened my desire to help others. With my knowledge of rock climbing gear, I began to rig highlines or what some people think of as tight ropes. My fear of heights dissolved year after year of climbing and allowed me to explore slacklining very high off the ground. I learned that with practice, you can overcome the things you fear most and to not let fear determine anything in your life.
Gymnastics
One day while at the rock climbing gym, someone saw me practicing backflips on a soft mat. She knew I coached kids in climbing and invited me to work at her gymnastics gym. I coached at Diablo Gymnastics for two years and found another gym when I moved to Truckee called Woodward Tahoe. I love when I can inspire others to try the things they are afraid of and felt that it helped me with my own fears. I felt like I had to practice what I preached and would demonstrate skills I was working on in order to inspire others to try. I believe you can do anything you set your mind to and the only thing stopping you from achieving your biggest dreams is fear. As I played with fear on a daily basis, I felt how it gave me the confidence to perform dance and live music in front of a crowd. Fear from sports resulted in getting injured by not committing 100% to the skill you were trying to learn and fear from performing dance and music inhibits your ability to express your genuine self.
Guitar
Picking up the guitar when I was 17 taught me a new concept of dexterity and muscle memory. The guitar taught me the importance of practicing every day and I could hear the imperfections from slow finger movements and clumsiness if I skipped a couple days of practice. I felt my muscle memory grow with my hands on the pottery wheel, paint brush and pencil as long as I practiced every day. I loved playing rhythm and lead guitar with friends, switching roles with band members and picking up electric bass and the drums. I feel like live painting in front of a crowd is the same as soloing on a guitar because no one knows when you make a mistake and you can always cover up any mistakes by improvising. My background in playing instruments is also helping me with my new outlets of electronic music production and djing live shows.
Writing
When I first moved away to live in Truckee, I was alone with my thoughts for the first two months. Not really having any friends up there, I started to journal and make drawings of political cartoons. The words started to flow and the meaning of my drawings developed with my mind. Writing really helped me process my traumas and anxieties, allowing me to connect with others around me in a much better way. I started to channel my thoughts as poetry and when I moved to Aspen, I told my self I would start rapping freestyle out loud every day for a year. I learned the four elements of Hip-Hop are Break Dance, MC (mic controller), Djing, and Graffiti Art. I felt an instant connection because I had been practicing all four elements without realizing. Rapping out loud really helps vent my frustration with the government's in power and spread positive information to people about the evolution of consciousness.