Motivation

My Background

As a kid, I lived with my mom and my dog in an artsy community in Northern Wisconsin, on the shores of Lake Superior. My mom was the president of a local community theatre, where she directed countless plays and musicals. I tagged along with her to rehearsals several nights a week.

As a grassroots theatre organization, cast and crew were always involved in marketing and promotional efforts, and I became involved as much as I could. It was through the theatre that I was exposed to radio production, public service announcement (PSA) writing, press releases, newspaper ads, playbill design, and television interviews.

With very little career counseling available to me as a teen, I knew I wanted to create billboards and magazine ads but had no idea how to get there. I began college in Minneapolis as a communications and graphic design major but dropped out when my interests in learning digital art and communication were beyond what any Midwest university was teaching at the time.  

The skills I learned at that time, however, have been used heavily ever since, and I believe they helped me succeed at Portland State.

Several years ago, I relocated with my own family to Salem, Oregon, where my Dad lived, in order to get to know him better. From there, I eventually landed in Portland. Of all the places I’ve been, Portland is the only place that truly felt like home, and I have no intention of leaving.