I started with art and art photography at a young age. I got my first camera at the age of seven in 1984, and various art supplies before then. Before high school, along with soccer and Boy Scouts, I was happily enrolled in the Clove Creek Art School in rural New York State. There I studied photography and animation. Growing up and living less than ninety minutes from New York City, I was fortunate enough to have made frequent trips to galleries, museums and theatrical productions with my family. I became quite familiar with the Lincoln Center, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, The Natural History Museum, The Guggenheim, and the Whitney. My folks were of moderate means, yet made art and culture a priority in our lives.
Before the age of thirteen, summer’s were spent on Cape Cod. My ancestor, Tristam Coffin, led a group of investors to settle Nantucket in 1659, just off the coast of Cape Cod. I felt right at home. We became neighbors of an eccentric and masterful impressionist painter, John Mulcahey. He was happy to take me on plein air expeditions, give me pointers, and allow me to watch him paint. He once showed me some of his college work from years past, some of which was commercially oriented. He had tried to instill in me the idea that to break the rules of aestheticism while remaining aesthetic, it was best to first learn the rules. Not being too keen on rules in general, I was not so sure. Seeing his broad array of styles, something clicked in me, and I began to take his teachings more seriously.
By the time I graduated high school in 1995, I had formed a strong appreciation for impressionism, surrealism, abstraction, and art nouveau. Having dabbled in these styles and more, one of the more memorable compliments I ever received about my art came from a high school art teacher, Mr. Newman. He said something along the lines of “Your greatest consistency is your inconsistency.” At first, that may seem insulting. I am sure my smile revealed that I understood it as something else. I was never content to remain in one style, always pushing to try something new. From comic books, to realism, to tribal, to folk, to abstract, to impressionist; from tight to loose, from literal and plain to thematic and layered, I wanted to explore it all. To this day – I still explore an ever-growing variety of styles.
I graduated from high school with Honors and Honors in Art, as well as receiving a National Merit Scholar Honorable Mention. In the same year I moved from Long Island to Los Angeles to attend college. I received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Design from the University of California, Los Angeles, graduating in 1999. I studied color, form, drawing, painting, photography, programming, video, three-dimensional modelling, animation, multimedia and completed a senior study in the publication of an art magazine.
After graduating, I moved to San Diego, living out of my car. I started as a freelance designer, creating catalogs from scratch, from product and fashion photography all the way to production. I also created an online platform by which to share and sell creative works as a personal project. In 2000, I created and ran a company, Media Titan, Inc., that provided design, marketing and programming services for small, medium and start-up businesses. During this time, much of my creative energy was spent creating and managing projects for clients. Nonetheless, in 2000 I purchased a video camera and proceeded to video every moment of my life I deemed interesting, particularly focusing on numerous and frequent road trips. Some of the video I edited into adventure film shorts, while most of my tape remains un-viewed. In 2006 I changed my focus from video to photography. From 2006 to about 2013, photography became an obsession. I averaged 72.4 creative shots per day, which I dutifully organized, edited and mostly scraped.
In 2007 one of my clients invited me to join a team working on a startup fine art trading company. I was tasked with recruiting and directing a team of developers to create a highly secure platform by which high-end galleries around the world could share inventory and fulfill collector requests. I was able to learn from experts in the fields of technology, business management and fine art.
By 2013 I was ready for a change. Having been working on rehabilitating a 1951 desert homestead since 2001, I moved there with my love, to pursue art and a life more connected to nature. Our little slice of paradise is just a few miles north of Joshua Tree National Park, an endless well of inspiration and peacefulness. Today, my primary artistic focus is still on photography, though I also write, draw and paint. I am looking forward to continuing a life close to nature, art, and positive change in the world.