When I was in 3rd grade, my father, or “Santa”, gave me a variety pack of Marvel Comics. I loved superheroes, but I was turned off by the reading. And I know…they’re mostly pictures. So I did like everyone does and I stored them in a shoebox and forgot about them for months. One Saturday morning, excited for it to be the weekend, I ran into my parents bedroom and asked what the plans were for the day. My mom answered with “you have a dentist appointment to have 4 teeth pulled.” Obviously I wasn’t thrilled, and in fact, I cried. So I went to my room, closed the door, and pulled out the shoebox of comics. I don’t know how many I read that morning, but I do know that I at least momentarily, forgot about that dentist appointment.

I come from a family of artists so with a mix of inherited artistic ability and family influence, I was drawing all the time as a kid. When it came time to decide where I’d go to college, it was obvious I’d go for art. But where? And for what? Well as you can probably guess, that shoebox of comics all those years ago had a pretty big impact. So I went to School of Visual Arts in NYC where I majored in Cartooning and had the privilege of studying under some of comics’ biggest names in the industry. In 2005 I graduated and went on to work as a freelance comic artist for 10 years.

Over those 10 years as a freelance artist, I also began teaching summer courses to teens as well as continuing education classes at the SMFA in Boston. In 2016 I decided to transition to teaching full-time and I have since been at CATS Academy Boston, an international boarding high school with a strong focus on the arts. For me, teaching is exciting and rewarding, and some of the relationships I’ve developed will last a lifetime. I enjoy watching students solve visual problems in order to best tell their story and my commitment is always to helping them reach their potential.