I was born in Los Angeles, California and as a child I spent a week each summer at my grandmother’s house in Fresno. We called her house the Fresno junkyard. She lived in a rundown house filled with nuts and bolts and rolls of printed vinyl that she sold at the flea market to earn a living.
Among the odds and ends that littered her yard was a large kick-wheel, a couple of kilns and an array of slip molds. She had oil paints and masonite boards, obsolete wall paper samples, dried flowers and Coke-a-Cola bottles that she melted into sculpture in her kiln. I now know that grandma’s house was not a junkyard; it was a treasure trove.
At home in Los Angeles each chair around our dinning room table was painted a different color. My mother painted our front door tangerine orange. When she became bored with it she streaked purple over the orange. Our small green bathroom had plenty of reading material built in thanks to the walls my mother decoupaged with old greeting cards, newspaper and magazine clippings.
Although art always brought me great joy and satisfaction when it came time to choose a career I pursued a degree in law and employment as a Deputy Public Defender. I had been raised by a single parent who struggled financially to support us. That upbringing instilled in me the importance of a practical profession that would provide financial stability and independence.
Although I was strongly committed to the cause of defending the criminally accused and the Bill of Rights, I always felt that art was my true calling. Now I have children of my own and I tell them to follow their passion and the rest will work itself out.
When I decided to leave the practice of law I started taking ceramics classes at Foothill College in Los Altos. I continued to study ceramics for several years. Eventually, I decided to broaden my education with drawing, painting and art history. In 2017 I completed my MFA with a concentration in spatial art at San Jose State University in California. I loved the art program at SJSU so much that I never left; I started teaching there right after graduation and continue to teach beginning sculpture classes there to this day.
Among the odds and ends that littered her yard was a large kick-wheel, a couple of kilns and an array of slip molds. She had oil paints and masonite boards, obsolete wall paper samples, dried flowers and Coke-a-Cola bottles that she melted into sculpture in her kiln. I now know that grandma’s house was not a junkyard; it was a treasure trove.
At home in Los Angeles each chair around our dinning room table was painted a different color. My mother painted our front door tangerine orange. When she became bored with it she streaked purple over the orange. Our small green bathroom had plenty of reading material built in thanks to the walls my mother decoupaged with old greeting cards, newspaper and magazine clippings.
Although art always brought me great joy and satisfaction when it came time to choose a career I pursued a degree in law and employment as a Deputy Public Defender. I had been raised by a single parent who struggled financially to support us. That upbringing instilled in me the importance of a practical profession that would provide financial stability and independence.
Although I was strongly committed to the cause of defending the criminally accused and the Bill of Rights, I always felt that art was my true calling. Now I have children of my own and I tell them to follow their passion and the rest will work itself out.
When I decided to leave the practice of law I started taking ceramics classes at Foothill College in Los Altos. I continued to study ceramics for several years. Eventually, I decided to broaden my education with drawing, painting and art history. In 2017 I completed my MFA with a concentration in spatial art at San Jose State University in California. I loved the art program at SJSU so much that I never left; I started teaching there right after graduation and continue to teach beginning sculpture classes there to this day.
