Q: Where do you find inspiration from? What was your inspiration for this particular piece?

A: I found my inspiration in the creation of the Sea of Creatures when I did a little trip back to my old home of New Orleans. Thinking about just how much life lived in or around the Gulf of Mexico made me realize just how little people realize of its diversity. Sperm Whales, Alligators, Giant Squid, Marlin, Morays, Manatee and so much more life lies within the gulf as well as our waters. I wanted to showcase how much life was within the waters we have, but it soon expanded to just animals visible in American Waters as a whole. The Ocean is a Sea of Creatures.

Q: What is your creative process?

A: My creative process for the Sea of Creatures was going through life within American waters and slowly filling in the page bit by bit. No real plan, no real idea of where it would go. Each animal changed the illustration further and further into something new from what I had imagined it would be. I had collected a bunch of people's favorite animals and checked to see which ones have been visible within the Gulf at some point in time. From Sketch to Inked to Colored with Blick Markers, the process only takes about a week, but each time the pencil meets the paper is a time of which the paper is transformed once more. 

Q: Is there a story your piece is trying to tell? If so, what is it?

For the Sea of Creatures, there isn't really an overall story, but more of just a message about oceanic species diversity.

Q: What does art mean to you?

A: Art to me is a way for us to both express ourselves and the things which make us who we are. Art is a thing filled with creation and discovery, a chance to partake in the abilities one possesses and the skill built over time through rigorous practice and error. Art itself is often at times a Sisyphean task filled with constant reflection of the work that has been done. Each work done by an artist develops something that is truly unique to an artist, not just the creation they have made, not just the blood ,sweat and tears they put into their work. But it all comes together to create a fragment of the artist themselves, in the form of their style. Style is a thing that is strong and shows off the skills the artist has like a grand mountain sticking up high for all to see, but it is also something that is just as flexible and malleable like the soft clay some choose to make their work out of. Art is a reflection of the artist who created it, but style is a showing of the time they have put into their art, the ways their art has changed, adapted and evolved like they have. While the art may be a reflection of the person behind the masterpiece, their style is a showing of just how much care they put into their art and the changes of life they have been through. To love is to be changed and a style is full of the love and passion a person has in their craft, the time they spent refining it to the way they want it and how they want it to be perceived by others. The art from an artist in my eyes is essentially a single footprint left behind on their pathway to the artistic perfection they strive for. But a style is essentially an archiving of their efforts, one which you can see change and evolve, go through moments of fluidity or rigidness and all this can be seen when one looks at the works an artist has made.  I am an artist, but the art I make is of things which are long since gone. Creatures which once roamed these lands and now have ceased to exist, both their world and their presence alone have vanished from these lands all to remain in the minds and imaginations of the men and women who care enough to peek behind the lands we walk on to see into time. But the one thing that being an observer of time has taught me is to cherish the change that comes with it, every little instance of care and passion that is seen and felt, every smile that is shared from one to another. As to be changed is to be loved.