I was your typical young black kid who just loved to draw. A few family members and a crowd of other passionate artistic kids on DeviantArt saw the talent in me, but that's about how far it went. Around 12 years old I remember seeing a postcard amongst the pile of bills and other mail brought in from the mailbox. It was an ad of a local college art program looking to attract new students. "I could go to college for this?" I thought.

It was the first time I was able to imagine the single-most beloved part of myself as anything more than an after school obsession. When I asked my parents about it, they saw it as junk mail. So I did too. What a pipe dream. 

It never crossed my mind again.

​I drew less and less as I grew up. I abandoned the thousands of followers on DeviantArt who loved my work in efforts to be an adult. I spent the first few years of my newfound adulthood working in healthcare. Did I have a passion for it? Not in the slightest. Was I good at communicating with patients, dealing with paperwork, and setting appointments? I sure as hell was.

Despite how good I was with people - healthcare wasn't my forever. It couldn't be. By 2022, I was starting to feel lost. The job was harder to tolerate, the cost of living was harder to manage, and my personal relationships were crumbling. I was crumbling. Art was an occasional fling and I was on the fast track to burnout.

By 2023, I met a girl. An artsy girl. She made a living as a graphic designer and flipped her lid when she saw my work. "Why the heck aren't you an illustrator?"  She asked. I shrugged. She then laid out a myriad of possibilities that my talents could touch without hesitation. They sounded amazing, but I was already starting to let that part of me go until…she showed me procreate on her iPad and let me borrow it.

The minute I passed my first stroke across the iPad to draw her as practice, I knew I had to keep going. So I did.