my story
I’ve been making art for as long as I can remember. Ever since I could pick up a crayon, I was drawing, creating, and finding little ways to turn the world around me into something of my own. I attended art school throughout my elementary school years, where I developed a deep love not only for creating art, but for its history, its stories, and countless ways humans have used art to express something that words sometimes can’t. A kids imagination is quite remarkable.
In high school, I found myself drawn to realism, abstract, and collage art. Even then, I knew I wanted to find a way to build a life around creating. I just didn’t know what that would look like yet. I feel like I lost touch with my imagination then.
In 2020, I took a break from college and began working as a nanny. Somewhere along the way, I discovered the world of tattooing, and something immediately clicked. I became quite obsessed and fascinated by tattoo culture, the history behind it, and the idea of carrying artwork with you for a lifetime. The more I learned, the stronger the pull became. I felt like I was being called to go find an apprenticeship and see where it could take me. So I did.
After completing an apprenticeship and spending years through practice and experimentation, and plenty of trial and error, tattooing became much more than I could ever imagined. Funny enough, when I first started I used to worry I wouldn’t be able to tap into my imagination, find my style and create original pieces.
My style continued to evolve alongside me. I studied more art styles. What started with realism, abstract and collage art has grown into something much more imaginative. A colorful world filled with traditional tattoo influences, surrealism, strange creatures, and a touch of magic and whimsy. One other thing that helped widen my imagination was consistent meditation.
I am inspired by the things that made my imagination feel limitless as a kid. Cartoons, the strange and wonderful worlds I found in video games, and memories of watching my dad play monster games all left little pieces of themselves behind. I think that’s where my love for creating otherworldly creatures came from. Taking something that feels strange or impossible and turning it into something beautiful. One of the things I love most about art is realizing that it exists everywhere, even in places we don’t always think to look for it. I see it in the way light moves through trees, in strange patterns and colors found in nature, in the shapes and personalities of animals and people. The world itself feels like an endless gallery, constantly creating and changing around us. If you just pay attention there is so much beauty, oddness, movement, and wonder all around us. I love taking little pieces of what I see and letting them find their way into my own imagination.
Today, I am still discovering what my art can become. Every piece is another little experiment, another story, and another doorway into my imagination. Whether I am tattooing someone, painting a canvas, or creating a commission, I love the feeling of taking something that existed only in my mind and giving it a place in the real world. I think there is a little bit of magic in that.
If my art can make someone feel more at home in their skin, bring a little wonder into their space or simply make them smile when they look at it… Then I think I am doing exactly what I've always wanted todo.
