In high school, I was one of those kids who spent lunch making art, carried a sketchbook everywhere, and cared as much about developing my own artistic “style” as I did earning all of my credits. The first bad grade I’d ever gotten was in a painting class as a sophomore, and it made me push ahead to master that material – and in fact, the teacher who gave me a D wrote my recommendation letter to art school a year and a half later. After spending the summer before senior year interning at Marvel Comics (paying the way with money I won in a spelling bee), I was certain that New York City would be my home.
I studied fine arts (focusing on painting) and earned a Bachelor’s degree from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, then took a few years off before attending Columbia University to earn a Master’s degree in Art History (focusing on art made in the second half of the 20th Century). While in graduate school, I found that the coursework was intense enough that it derailed my major-label record deal for the hip hop I recorded after my homework was done each night (I'm not kidding about this!). I also started teaching art history summer courses for Pratt’s pre-college program, which eventually led to pre-college studio art classes at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan.
After graduate school, I worked in the marketing department for a major auction house, which made me realize pretty quickly that my interest in art was not in its monetary value. I thought back to the excellent art teachers I'd had in high school and college, who had inspired me and given me new ways to see myself and the world. I looked back to my then-recent experiences with pre-college students at Pratt, and realized that I could make my greatest impact on art by showing others their own stake in it. My studies in Art Education at Brooklyn College were immensely gratifying and exciting - they helped me understand how to make art approachable and achievable (yet challenging) for every student, and it’s my pride and joy when I see things “click” for a new artist in my classroom.