In 2007, I started my professional art career or I guess we can say I started to take art seriously. I have always been a creator of things every since my childhood, I noticed my gift of making something from nothing. I would create things from used materials of any sort, pens, popcicle sticks, cardboard, old computer parts, or whatever I could get my hands on. I would take apart vaccums, old radios, RC cars, and old computers, to see how it worked, what it took to create it, what could be reused from it, and the overall process of making it.

Over the years, I began to develop a passion for the process of creating things and for how they are made. I surrounded myself with different tools, materials, how-to books, and began creating from my head things I was inspired to make. Although, I have always had a passion for being a creator, I have also used creating as a form of Phyiscal, Mental, and Emotional Therapy throughout my life. At birth, I was diagnosed with a hereditary blood disorder called Sickle Cell Anemia, which causes extreme pain episodes in the body called a Sickle Cell Crisis. To describe the pain would be like me telling you to grab a baseball bat and to hit yourself over and over in the same spot for hours, days, and even weeks. To join a football team, just to take hit after hit with no equipment or padding daily. Strapping a 50lb weight to your chest and hitting it with a rubber mallet again and again. Those may seem a little exagerrated but believe me, others dealing with the same disorder would agree and add to that list. You probably hear us all agree on this one analogy, that we would’nt wish a Sicke Cell Pain Crisis on our worst enemy. Currently there are no cures for Sickle Cell Anemia, and patients dealing with this disorder will unfortunalty suffer through this life long trauma. But when I discovered that creating and building things with my hands acted a form of pain relief and therapy, for my sickle cell disorder, I never turned back. It became my outlet, my escape, my relief, and a part my life’s purpose! I have learn to navigate through a painful life by creating things that will uplift a persons spirit, just like my own through Creative Arts.

When I started college in 2005, my major was Business Administration, I was following a path of my father by focusing on being a businessman and entrepreneur. Although this path was a very important to surviving and making a living for myself, I felt like something was definitely missing. I began to become uninterested and wanted to get back to the creative side of me, so I went searching for courses that would spark my creativity and allow me to use my hands and skills I had learned growing up and battling Sickle Cell. I stumbled across a course called interior and furniture design, just an additional elective course to my major but it would serve a purpose to get my creative side flowing again. Turns out, it was more so about learning the interior design career, creating design boards, and renewing furniture with paint, it was a tease and just not enough, I wanted more. That very same semester I learned that I was on the verge of failing some important business courses, and I had been missing alot of class due to my illness and stress, and it became difficult applying myself to the curriculum. I met with my school advisor and told her my situation, and she suggested that I take art elective courses, and bam I was in there! I was able to get back to my creativity and therapy through the art making process, I began creating sculptures, fine jewelry, furniture, installation pieces, props, and screenprints. I studied the woodworking tools and learned how to setup and maintain them. I fixed the ones that were broken and brought in some from my own collection for other students to learn to use. My professor noticed that I was self-guided and passionate with everything I was doing including teaching the other students how to use the machines. That same semester she told me I had a gift and encouraged me to change my major to Studio Art with a focus in Sculpture, I did and never looked back!

Today, I am able to live through art, woodworking, and teaching and share my experiences of how I’m able to turn my Pain into Purpose!