founder of Spinning Rock Media
I was born and bred in Oklahoma's second largest metropolitan, Tulsa. I left that burg at the age of 18 to become a student at Universiy of Saint Mary in Prison-Town, U.S.A. (Leavenworth, KS, for those of you not in the "know").
It was here that I met my wife and we started a family.
Over the years, there have been quite a few things I've wanted to do with my life, but to do the right thing has been always at the top of my list. When I was five I wanted to build houses. In high school, I wanted to be a teacher. In college, I wanted to be an artist. Right after college, I wanted to make newspapers. I've always wanted to be a writer. I love doing creative things, drawing, writing, and figuring things out. I've never been able to decide what I wanted to do for a living.
I've gotten other jobs. I've set ads for a newspaper and laid out pieces to be printed. I've written some stuff (articles, letters, etc). I've run a cash register. I've answered phones. I worked in a heater manufacturing plant.
Now, I am my own boss. I am the publisher for Spinning Rock Media. I handle just about everything when it comes to our books besides the writing of the content. If you need business cards, letterhead, illustration, website assistance, copywriting, or image-scanning, let me know. Email me at [email protected].
I can live all of my goals... but in God's time, not mine.
Below are links to some of my pages:Personal Info
I suppose this should be called an "autobio" instead of a "bio," since I'm writing it myself...
Globic Tales | Who's Watching Who?
What I want to do...
The first thing I ever said I wanted to be when I grew up was a tennis player. I was really little at the time, maybe five, maybe six. Since then, I�ve wanted to build log cabins, become an architect, draw comic books, write novels, teach literature classes, run a newspaper, publish newsletters, and umpteen million other things. I took an Emode survey once that said I should be a carpenter. True, I like building things (and if I won the Powerball I'd build Habitat houses), but I don't think of myself as a carpenter. For one thing, I'm not good at physical things. The point I'm trying to make is, career plans change.
Life is the great Educator.
I've learned a lot of cool stuff in my life, but schooling has only contributed a small part. I've learned a lot about humility, friendship, communication, art, criticism, acceptance, and happiness outside of any academic environment. Quite a strange bunch of learnings, aren�t they? They don�t point down a common path, but they all build a kind of foundation. Though by no means an expert of any one thing, I have observed many facets people and of workplaces.
A Career
"Graphic designer" is a cool title, but it is a broad enough �career� to include just about anything. Book jackets, pamphlets, posters, and business cards are all made by graphic designers. I could specialize in magazine layout or CD cover production. My specialty doesn�t matter; what matters is that I have a career goal. My goal: to make the best visio-textual designs that I can to communicate in the best way possible.Right now, I don�t know where my �career� is leading, or even if I have a �career.� What I do have is experience and a willingness to learn.
My resume...
I mentioned my resume just now. What exactly is a resume? It lists accomplishments, education, and job history. The job history that I have on my resume is as diverse as the jobs I�ve wanted to have. From food service, I learned a little about humility and patience. At Wal-Mart, I got to work on my people skills. As art intern at the college, I was exposed to many aspects of the art world. While working in the library, I learned about helping patrons and the good ol� library system. I learned how to set display advertisements and saw the workings of a newspaper. I learned to ask a lot of questions from the company who went bankrupt right under me. And now, I am in the position to learn how to follow orders in the United States government.By any chance do you want to view a current version of my resume?
Self Portaits
Self-portraits are a great way of testing out different styles of art. When an artist is studying, he has to find a subject to test himself on. The best subject is one the artist knoes well. Who does an artist know as well as he knows himself? The answer is "No one." An artist knows what lies in his own heart emotionally, what he looks like physically, and what he wants to look like. There are thoughts, feelings, and attitudes that can go into producing a portrait. Portraits can be intensely personal.As I wrote before, I have made quite a few pictures of myself. The self-portraits I've made come out looking quite different from one another. Despite this fact, I've been told that most of them look like me. Sometimes I have long hair, sometimes short hair, sometimes no hair. I wear glasses in some of my portaits, but shed the specs in most. I'm clean-shaven, or I'm not. The thing about portraits is, you have to get down certwin facts to make a clear communication of the person. How I've been able to communicate who I am in a portrait, I'm not sure. But I know that I have done it, and I know I could do it again and again.
 | I think it was the spring of '98 when I got it into my head to do an advanced studio class in computer graphics. I enjoyed the class I'd taken with my college art professor Jason the year before, and I wanted to explore ccomputer graphics a bit more. Jason was officially my instructor for the college-creditted class, but he gave me a lot of free reign with projects. I wanted to do some kind of scrolling animation-thing with my face, but given our technology restraights at the college, such a project wouldn't be possible. Instead, I held our digital camera in my hands, captured a few dozen photos of my face and merged the three I liked best onto a greenish-blue background. The three-headed monster on the left is the result of that manipulation. |
 Let me ask you a question: have you ever read any of the books in the "Wheel of Time" series by Robert Jordan? It's a great fantasy epic (though Jordan is so verbose that the story can be tedious to read).
One of the main characters turns out to be this prophecized man. His is the head that wears the metaphoric "Crown of Swords" (the title of one of the books). I call the callaged picture at the right "Crown of Swords." In my blockprint class, we were asked to create symbols for items and I came up with revolvers representing swords. (Guns replaced swords for a physical manifestation of verility, power, control, etc.) The self-portrait I had printed with cut linoleum looked like what I would have pictured the character looking. Thus, I collaged onto a painted surface and "Crown of Swords" was born! |
My passion for science fiction and fantasy came to a head when I discovered the mythic world of glob. I write about this on other webpages, but a little of that passion spills over here on my bio page. To the left is a little pic I did of me as a Jordian Rebel. I tell a little about the Jordian National Rebellion Army on that other group of pages. Why it is so important is because Jordia appeared to me before any of the other places on glob. Though I only created the world, and there's no way to be an inhabitant, I made this picture to imagine myself there. I took a digital photo and painted on it in Photoshop. |
I'd love to receive emailage from you. Write to me at [email protected]