Describe your process of creating a new piece.

It starts with thumbnail drawings which are suggestive to the piece, then as I paint it really starts to come together.

It’s never one piece at a time; I often approach my paintings as a series, for efficiency and cohesiveness.  Just like life, my artwork goes through seasons, drawing inspiration from different environments and the changing surroundings.

How did you get started working with reclaimed materials?

At first I never thought art was something that you would start by going to an art shop and buying art materials, and at most my mother saw that I had an interest for art so bought me crayons and that was it.  It was organically developed from my family naturally saving things we came across and my Dad’s DIY influence.

I would find something and see it as an artifact that would get saved or would naturally come across illegal dump sites, where I would then bring stuff home with the intention of building something but half the time nothing would really happen.  It was the whole sense of the discovery of finding new discarded materials.

If you had to explain your work to a stranger, how would you do it?

I like to make things.  I make things that people generally discard, with the hopes to narrate a story with a certain concept and  found materials.

What do you love most about living in the Bay Area?

There is an acceptance of the green culture and its progressive attitude.  To go out and do it.  People don’t stick to the typical route, they make do and find a new way with the tools they have.  The weather is inspiring.

I have lived in the Tenderloin and downtown, but I really like the Mission. and its current construct of hip joints verse local establishments.  The locals open the business and the locals go, and the gentrified will be open for only the new people and tourists.

Where do you go to relax and/or find inspiration for your pieces?

I’m an avid cyclist.  When ever I need a break I will go for a ride around town with my fixed gear, and today I organized a trip from SF to San Jose, which is a hometown-to-hometown experience.

What future direction do you see your work taking? What excites you now?

Get back to the basics and loosen up.  Thrilled about more commissions and putting commercial or household spaces through an environmental transformation.  I want to do more than just intensive paintings and expand my practice to do installations with meaning and simplicity. Still like the idea of my paintings anchoring down a show, but want to extend myself to always consider the space.

Is there an artist/designer that has influenced you with your work or whom you look to for inspiration?

Anybody and everybody has something to offer.  Passionate people like philanthropists, teachers, and as for and American contemporary artists, Tom Sachs, Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol.  Super prolific and pretty much make art with anything.  Its their reckless creative energy thats influential.

When are you the most productive?

I’m on a schedule now, there is something to be said about mundane routines.    Had a chaotic work schedule before, being up at all hours, being a moody artist, and it just didn’t work.  There are so many hours doing monotonous tasks that people don’t realize.  Hopefully will be phasing out a lot of the more monotonous things as I form up with a group of people. Its all about getting to the point of not thinking to make great ideas.

Do you have any new projects and/ or upcoming shows, etc…?

A partner and I have created New Leaf Collection, which is products based off of my work, making me the project manager and my partner the promoter.