I believe that every person has the capacity to be creative. What I mean is, we all have similar hardware. We have hands for holding paintbrushes, eyes for seeing the subject, and also for seeing what we produce. We have a brain to process it all. We have nerve endings so we can feel. For some of us, those emotions find their way out our fingertips through paint and ink, through any number of artistic mediums and fields. For others, they come out through things like meditation, marathon running or compulsive cleaning. We all have our outlets. I think they come naturally. I don’t remember a time before I wanted to draw.

You can have a proclivity for something, but you still have to learn it. You have to practice, and hone your skills. When you plant seeds in your garden, you don’t just eat the produce right away. You have to water and care for the plants. It takes time. It takes nurturing. It’s the same way with the garden in your mind. You have to cultivate those seeds nature has given you. By the time creativity has matured, it is both innate and learned.

That learning is happening all the time if we only pay attention. With every firing of every synapse that stores the smallest bit of information in our brain, we are changed, and we can be inspired. It’s more noticeable when the big things happen, but we are affected by it all.

Maybe I haven’t always known specifically what I wanted to do as an artist, but I have always wanted to communicate.

In that sense, I have always wanted to do what I am doing now.

Spirituality and culture are at the core of my art. Not religion. Not patriotism. My interest goes further back to what it means to be a human… an earthling… not defined by any political or religious border or dogma.