Practice

Thirty years of fine art practice: painting, drawing, tattooing, cake decorating, fiber arts and sewing. It's where I've practiced dedication to craft and curiosity since the age of four.

Ink on paper

Drawing and painting from childhood, through a BFA among foggy redwoods on a hill overlooking the ocean, then an experimental MFA in Norway. I work out ideas by making them, which is how I design.

Two hares mirrored head to tail, pierced by arrows, in engraved black line work on red paper Two mirrored foals in deep blue on red, a white star between their heads, framed by blue bands of red sparks A human rib cage in blue with red inner ribs on near-black, cut through by green lightning and star sparkles Two mirrored chimeras, tigers with goat heads and serpent tails, facing a column of stars on a red burst A gannet diving head first in cream and black against blue, a red disc behind its head A blue wolf head on green, two pink hands reaching in, scattered with peach stars A Dungeness crab seen head on in purple and gold under a crescent moon and four stars A turtle seen from above in stippled black and grey, rising out of orange flames between columns of stars A red amphora whose body becomes a tiger face, set on green between black bands of chain links

Ink on skin

A year-long apprenticeship, then years of tattooing my own designs. It's design with no undo, for a client who often has a high tolerance for pain points and wants to wear the result forever.

Tattoo on a calf: a snarling wolf-like borzoi leaping down toward a hare curled below, in fine stipple Tattoo across a torso: a tiger-bodied chimera with a goat head and a serpent tail, in stipple and black line Tattoo on an upper arm: a heron mid-stride with one foot raised, in fine stipple with a solid black cap Tattoo: a ram head with heavy curled horns, flames and eight-pointed stars on its brow Tattoo on a calf: a tiger head emerging from a black ribbon of water coiling upward, scattered with stars Tattoo on an upper arm: a pintail duck built from black and grey stipple with a long sweeping tail Tattoo on a forearm: a swift with spread wings rising toward a star, trailing red smoke and long tail feathers Tattoo on a calf: a bird-of-paradise bloom in soft stipple above a long solid black stem

Sugar

I decorated cakes at a bakery. Sculpture on a deadline, in a material that fights back.

Buttercream sheet cake: Godzilla rising from a stylised sea of dorsal fins, with a birthday message Fondant cake sculpted as a pair of white briefs, with stitched seams, a flag and a date A navy airbrushed cake flecked with gold leaf, piped with a swirling starry sky and a black cypress A cake piped in short buttercream strokes as a smiling shiba inu face, with fondant ears A cake sculpted as a glazed holiday ham with diamond scoring, a pineapple ring and cherry on top A gilded money-sack cake spilling fondant hundred-dollar bills, with a Father’s Day greeting A slice of poppy-seed layer cake with feathered yellow icing and a piped orange poppy