"There are no rules when I make art at home.” It was a simple realization that changed the course of my life forever. It sounds dramatic, but there I sat, in my first-grade art class, freshly scolded by a rather grouchy substitute art teacher for making an abstract choice to color my sheep purple. She told me, rather harshly, that because sheep aren't purple in real life, they can't be purple in my art either. My six-year-old self couldn’t fathom why she was so bent out of shape over my sheep. It seemed trivial, at best, that I had to make art the way things are in reality. That day, whether it was by natural pull toward art, or possibly just out of spite, I decided to become an artist.​