Bio

Design Background:
I had a background in other design-related professions before obtaining a certificate in Graphic Design and Advertising Production from Parsons School of Design in 1996. I had worked for Edward Larrabee Barnes / John M.Y. Lee, Architects (one of NYC's top 10 architecture firms) as a Systems Manager, and had designed guitars and designed and built cabinets before that. Apparently I have a supremely good conceptual abilility for 3D visualization, which I think played a role in my success in these fields.

Upon completion of the Parsons Certificate, I attended CalArts as a pre-MFA (3 year) Graphic Design student. Once at CalArts, I found that I wanted to spend more time working with multi-media and music than would be possible within the Graphic Design program. I transferred into the Composition-New Media branch of the music school, and into the Integrated Media Program, which facilitates inter-departmental work, earning an MFA in 1999. My undergraduate work at Hampshire College had been in Music Composition and Video Production, with primary research in the History of Music Scoring for Animated Films, so I was already grounded in work with diverse media.

My MFA thesis work explored the interaction of politics and religion with music, theatrical performance, and projected media. While developing these projects, I taught various design, video, and media skills around Los Angeles.

Since receiving my MFA, I have worked in a variety of capacities as a web developer. In my spare time I continue to perform as a musician, develop musical theater works, and teach Kundalini Yoga.

Media and Community
I have an active interest in the use of media for community building.

I participated in several dial-in conferencing projects before the proliferation of our current internet-based messenging systems like phpBB. Among these were Stacy Horn's ECHO (East Coast Hang-Out) in NYC - of which I was a seminal member - and the Bay Area's WELL (Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link), from which it was spawned.

I maintained an online alumni cgi conferencing board for the boarding high school that I attended (closed since 1980), and this facilitated a well-attended reunion that I helped organize in 2000. We included alumni from 1945 to 1980 at this event, and had attendees from 4 continents - despite having had minimal address information for the entire alumni population. The online community was quite active long after the reunion, and still allows members to keep in touch.

With CalArt's Community Arts Partnership, we used ISDN videoconferencing systems to link Latino and African-American communities across Los Angeles at
Leimert Park's KAOS Media Center and East LA's Plaza de la Raza. Students later worked on art projects together, with new friends from neighborhoods they would probably not have visited before.

With "Community Build" in South Central LA, high school kids were equipped with digital cameras and photographed things they liked in their neighborhoods. Using photoshop they retouched images of empty lots with their snapshots, and then were offered the opportunity to work with a Urban Redevelopment organization to actually implement these ideas.

My work with the National Urban Technology Center centered on facilitating community empowerment. Crack houses were turned into community education centers where residents could gain life skills to help change their lives and communities.

Professional Activities
I follow developments in SIGGRAPH (Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group Graphics), SIGCHI (ACM's Special Interest Group in Computers and Human Interaction), the AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Artists), AES (Audio Engineering Society), GAG (Graphic Artist's Guild), Lynda.com, and Jakob Nielson and Donald Norman information architecture writings. In the past I was a student member of SMPTE (Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers) and I ran the AIA (American Institute of Architects) Macintosh User's Group in NYC in the late 80's and early 90's. I was an active participant in the IICS (International Interactive Computer Society) in the early 90's and have been active with many online conferencing communities such as the WELL and ECHO.

I have found that approaches to creativity can be found anywhere, and am constantly seeking new ideas and approaches to design.