I Started Out as a Painter

Growing up, my heroes were DaVinci and Max Ernst

I spent hours on the floor of our family living room pouring through my Dad’s coffee table books of DaVinci, Michelangelo and the Surrealists. I showed an aptitude for drawing and began attending art classes. I copied works by the old masters. I loved DaVinci and the other Renaissance artists for their formal techniques. But as I learned more about modern art I began to appreciate experimenters like the Surrealist Max Ernst. I wanted to combine the technique of the old masters with the inventiveness of modern artists.

My family however were all involved in Science. My Dad was a doctor, my Grandpa was a doctor and my Grandma worked in a lab. It seemed like medicine was my destiny. I completed a pre-med curriculum at Dartmouth. However in the middle of my Medical School interviews I finally decided I couldn’t continue down that path and I decided to pursue fine art.

After school I moved back to my hometown of San Diego, started waiting tables and got a studio near the downtown library. It was a great time. The artist Barry Ebner ran a life drawing workshop there and was massively generous with teaching me technique and even giving me some of his old supplies and an easel I still have. I was a small but tight knit community and I learned a ton. 

After a year or so I moved to Los Angeles and lucked into a small studio in the artist Ed Ruscha’s art building on Western. I painted there for about 10 years before deciding, for various reasons involving earning an income, to focus on design. It was a tough decision. I felt like I had given up on my identity. But I found a great deal of satisfaction in design and I continued making music as a creative outlet. I haven’t painted in years, but if I ever go back to it, it will be for the right reasons.