In love with lines and colours.

At a young age, my drawings soon developed into people with arms where their ears should be, little Volkswagen Beetles with smoke billowing out of their huge tailpipes, wee cottages that looked more like cupcakes than dwellings, etc. Eventually the people looked more like family members than spiders and a whole horizon of representational (yet always cartoony) art became my passion. As soon as able, I read comic books as often as I could; my favourites were Swamp Thing and Jonah Hex, and some other DC classics. At 12 years old, when everyone was asking me that dreaded and cloying question “What do you want to be when you grow up?,” I always said “CARTOONIST!” At age 13, I read the World Encyclopedia of Comics cover to cover. I doodled constantly in public school, filling notebook margins with caricatures of teachers and fellow students.

I grew up two miles from the nearest postal service on a rural hobby farm, 25 miles northeast of Nelson, BC, Canada next to Highway 3A. I did grade 8 and 9 through correspondence courses. No teachers or friends to distract me, and most importantly, no getting into detention from drawing silly cartoons.

I went back to public school for the last 3 years, barely got my “dogwood,” as we call it here (diploma). A high school guidance counselor once called me to his office and asked me what my goals were. I told him I barely wanted to scrape through and graduate! He was cornered. He knew he couldn’t do anything; my parents were anti-authoritarian, middle-aged hippies who don’t believe in letting “the man” get their children down! But, I did get an art award in high school for outstanding achievement; I wasn’t lazy in that class. And, I turned out to be a productive, contributing member of society.

After that, I moved to Vancouver, BC, and attended Emily Carr College (now University) of Art & Design and majored in printmaking, mostly doing serigraphy (silkscreen printing). I excelled in that environment, and was awarded the Helen Pitt Award for outstanding achievement in first year studies.

Now I live in Nelson, BC, where I use my cartoonist skills for various projects as well as enjoying many outdoor activities here when it’s not full of forest fire smoke (cough, gag).

I’ve worked many jobs; I’ve enjoyed the grind of tough work when I was younger to support my artistic habits: bartending, construction, tree planting, driving cab, and custodial work. Then, an employment counselor who is wiser than me said, “Why don’t you focus more on your illustration work so you don’t have to go outside yourself so much?” Good question. So, here I am ready and willing.

Some of my clients include: Canadian Biker Magazine, Kootenay Mountain Culture Magazine, Kootenay Express newspaper, BC Legal Services. For more info click on my CV.