As a child, I learned I loved art and writing by the age of seven. By the age of 10, a teacher more or less said I was mediocre in art, and so other than from time to time, I left art behind as a childhood hobby and focused on writing.

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I always wanted to do something important, be someone important, so at the age of 18, and after graduating high school, I went out in search of what that might be. My searches brought me to:

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• the Air Force, where I was a Korean linguist

• back home to college, where I earned my BA in English and then my MA in English, with a focus on Scientific and Technical Communications

• Bluffton University in Bluffton, Ohio where I worked in the library

• Lake Shore Cryotronics in Westerville, Ohio, where I worked as a technical writer

• the gym at The Yoga and Fitness Factory where I train as a personal trainer.

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Each of these places I learned a little more about myself and I found myself in a better circumstance than before. By the time I left Lake Shore, I left the idea of doing something important behind, and decided I just wanted to do something that felt meaningful to me. And that meant working with people.

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Personal training has brought me a lot of satisfaction in that respect, and I love working with my clients who always end up being friends. But I began to see that I wanted even more "depth" in my work. And so I began to explore this by returning to art. 

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When my mom died, I had the pleasure of writing her "life story" (a short summation of her life for a pamphlet handed out at the funeral) and her eulogy. When I wrote my mom's eulogy, it was important to honor her by representing her as best as I could, and I poured myself into the process of writing it. By the time I finished mom's eulogy, I knew that I needed to return to my writing wholeheartedly. I knew the first place I would do that publicly would be in this blog.​

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The art? The art is where I re-energize. It's where I play and imagine and dream, and sometimes where I let go in a way that I can't let go without paint. The abstracts I paint are the best way I've found to dispel the ugly, voice what is right, celebrate the beauty, and honor the forgotten and oppressed.