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I was born in the wee town of Valley Station, which is now considered
part of Louisville, Kentucky on December 25th, 1966. From that moment
on I lived the tumultuous life of a military child until 1977, when
my family settled down back in Louisville. As far back as I can
remember in my early childhood years, I started drawing and building
things in my room. Art always seemed to come very natural to me.
My mother said she suspected I was very gifted but that defining
moment for her came when I was about 8 years old. She asked me to
draw a picture of Rikki Tikki Tavi, that cartoon
about the mongoose from the 70's for my little sister. I sat down
and recreated his image straight from memory. My mother swears it
looked just like him, although I admit my own reservations. Unfortunately
we don't know where it is if it even still exists.
The 70's probably made me most of what I am and helped to set
my life in the direction in which it is still going today. With
such films as Jaws, the Star Wars trilogy and Alien,
my interests in wildlife, science fiction, horror, fantasy, and
most importantly,
special effects, were sparked. Star Wars and Alien were
particularly big influences on my life. In my preadolescent and
early teenage
years as the trilogy was released in theaters, I was recreating
the space ships out of cardboard and toothpicks! Additionally
my fascination with sharks, the ocean, and all wildlife developed
from seeing Jaws. I recall an art contest that I entered
for Kellogg's in which I had some of my childhood cereal buddies
like "Tony the
Tiger" on a boat like the one in the movie with a shark in it.
I actually won a 10-speed bicycle that served me well for many
years!
In middle and high school, my path began to diverge with so many
interests that it was hard for me to choose a career path for
myself.
I played in the high school band and considered becoming a musician.
Then I actually entered college in 1984 with biology as my major
in hopes of becoming a Marine Biologist (still due to some of that
Jaws influence I'd say). Through all of that, art was the
one passion that I continued to have, and I would say I was always
innately
compelled to do. As I have told my friends, "I was born to
be an artist." Once realizing this, in my 2nd year of college,
I changed my major and decided that I would try to make art my
career.
My dream at that time had always been to go to Hollywood and work
for the special effects companies, so that was what I set for
myself
as my goal. In the fall of 1989, I finished college with a degree
in Theater Arts and got in contact with my idol and future friend,
Dick Smith. I am talking about the very same Dick Smith who did
special effects make-up for tons of movies and television shows
like Amadeus, Little Big Man, The Exorcist and Dark Shadows.
I enrolled in his special effects make-up correspondence course.
He is very
selective in choosing who he will mentor. Once accepted, I was
thrilled and started corresponding with him about my work. During
that time
I also started making trips out to Los Angeles to start going after
my dream.
My first big break didn't actually come until May 1993 at a local
garage model kit show called Wonderfest, where I met
Chris Walas, famed for such films as Gremlins and The
Fly. He is
a very cool guy and just a week later, I was working for him in
Marian County, California at his special effects shop! Working
for
Chris was an incredible experience and went by way too fast. I
learned quickly in my new freelance career that work can be overwhelming
at
times but can also become very scarce. When the work dried up,
I had to go home.
My next big break came in the fall of '94, when I was working
at Distortions Inc., a Halloween mask and prop making company.
Within
the first week of working there, Steve Johnson of XFX hired me.
He bought me out of my contract at Distortions and flew me back
to California to start working on my first movie, Species.
From that moment on I did many films and lived my dream of working
in
Hollywood including for the notable shop, Cannom Creations. I was
very fortunate in that I had the opportunity to work on such films
as Thinner, Blade, Steel, Space Truckers and Titanic. As time has a way of
changing things, by the fall of '97 I had enough of the film business
and
wanted to change my career direction. I decided to go home, back
to Louisville, and try to redirect my career in a new way.
My interest and great love of wildlife has always paralleled my
love and interest in art, so I concluded that would be the focus
for my sculpting and my career. Since making that choice, I have
been lucky enough to be a working artist doing public and private
commissions and commercial work. I am currently trying to start
my own line of figurines and raise money to do a life-size Dian
Fossey Memorial sculpture. |
