Background

What makes me a designer? It would be impossible to answer that question without you and I having a cup of coffee together and chatting about beautiful things. Though I can begin by saying that my love of the natural world is my primary source of inspiration.

There are others.

My mother playing ragtime on an upright Wurlitzer, in Southern California. The nursery down the road where my father sold the junipers our neighbors planted by their pools. Staring at him for hours as he sketched landscapes to the dulcet tones of late-night AM radio.

The student trip to Northern Israel on an architectural dig, sifting through dirt and ash to unearth ancient hash pipes molded from blue clay. The birthday trip to Paris where an impromptu idea resulted in a one-of-a-kind purse embroidered with roses, covered with butterflies and a meeting with the designers at the House of Chanel.

The semester I spent at the University of Heidelberg and the layered skirts of the Roma pickpockets.

Tossing wildflowers seeds from my car, singing a Cockettes tune in drag for a theater benefit. The graffiti artists on Valencia Street. My brief stint as hair and make up artist for Gemilla and Misty and the rest of the strippers at the Gold Club. Working for Stanlee Gatti Designs. The woods of Occidental and the dunes of Cape Cod.

There's more, but I'd rather tell you in person.