The first semester had just finished and we were getting ready to start the next semester. I was on the basketball team and I really wasn’t enjoying architecture. I kind of felt that I had to do it. I’d also heard my whole life that artists, when they go to an art school, their professors will try to impose their styles on their students and make the students clones of themselves. I really didn’t want to do that.
I wanted to be an individual. So that’s one of the other reasons I didn’t major in art or illustration. But then, after seeing a friend of mine, Joe Davis, bring his artwork into practice one day, I was blown away by how great it was and how unique it was to him. And I asked him “They let you do this type of artwork for your assignments?” And he said, not only that, they help you do what you do better. They want you to be an individual.
After seeing that, it inspired me to really follow my heart and do the art that I wanted to do. Because at heart, I wasn’t an architect — I was a painter. So I decided, even if I had to starve I would become an artist and do what I really love to do. And the next day I changed my major to illustration and didn’t look back.
