I’ve dabbled in art my entire life, but for years I couldn’t slow my mind enough to truly apply myself. I would make progress, then regress after long breaks, trapped in a cycle that left me frustrated and insecure. Fear of rejection played a huge role—art requires emotional vulnerability, and I wasn’t capable of that for a long time. If you don’t feel good about yourself, it’s hard to feel good about what you create.
Eventually I made some of the worst choices of my life and ended up in prison. The silver lining was time and maturity. It took getting older—past 30 and a decade into a 28-to-life sentence—for things to finally click. Better late than never. It became art or die for me.
During that time, I logged over 250 hours of tattoo work on myself and learned to tattoo others. I drew and tattooed a lot of dumb stuff, but it got the creative momentum going. I never pursued tattooing seriously, even though the aptitude was there, and eventually stopped altogether. Then a friend told me to quit screwing around and do art for real. She heard the passion in my voice—and for once, I listened.
I found oil painting and fell in love with it immediately. The emotional connection was instant, and from there I began exploring multiple mediums. Creating memorial portraits showed me what art can truly do—capturing the essence of a person and giving something meaningful back to someone who connects with it. That validation changed me.
Now I pursue art every day in some form—drawing, painting, music, or simply studying images and learning however I can. I have to. Like a shark that must keep swimming, I create.
It’s art or die.
