
When I was 12, I gave my 7th grade teacher a painting. I still remember his face and how touched he was. Something woke up inside me that day, and I decided I was going to be an artist.
I grew up in the Arizona desert, in a family of artists, where you don’t step outside in the summer unless you have to. We had an air-conditioned art studio. I painted luscious landscapes and scenes in my head, the places I longed to see. I had to create the beauty, the escape that I so desired.
I’d watch my dad for hours, making his little intricate drawings, mesmerized by how his hand flowed. I wanted to be like him. But for a while, everyone said my art looked just like my family’s, and I just hated hearing that. I wanted so badly to have a voice of my own.
My mom encouraged me to learn oil painting. The first class was a self-portrait, and it was like all my fears in one class. I was so afraid to make a bad painting, and I remember crying. I kept pushing through, and then I saw how magical the oil paint was, and I fell in love.
Then I took a portfolio class, four paintings a week with the whole class critiquing them. I took it three times, and that’s where I found my style.
By 15, an artist agency had signed me, and I was painting 6 to 8 originals a month for galleries all over the country.



































