The Road to Cleveland

A few Years back I moved to Cleveland for a few months for work. It would be my first drive across the country and my Brother Ted came along for the fun of it. He was going to help me settle into my apartment and fly back to L.A., but as documented below we got distracted and time ran out before he had to leave me in Indiana to get back to his own job.

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Westrim Crafts

Every once in awhile I get a job that makes me step back and say..."I get paid for this?...Life's pretty good."

Westrim Crafts asked me to make large display pieces for their booth at the big Craft & Hobby Association Convention in Las Vegas next week. The display pieces are large versions of their soon to be "monster" themed craft kits.

Each finished monster is about 4' tall. The large chinese take out box is how the kits will be packaged. Not pictured are 3 other smaller pieces such as a pair of legs that will be poking out of one of the booth pillars. The challenge of this project was to try and mimic the small 3" high originals made of pipe cleaners, pom poms etc. I made the understructure out of wire so the "monsters" would be poseable like the originals. Thanks to my old co-worker and friend Kirk Scott for coming in at short notice to help me with the box as the deadline was approaching and Stefanie Gerard for hooking me up with the gig.

This was a fun project, somewhere between making giant action figures and muppets.

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My supervising producer on Stylelicious and Craftlab, Lisa Sichi, was at CHA and took the pics below of the Westrim booth at the show. Thanks Lisa!



My 5 weird habits

Ok I got hit with this from my friend JAG.

"TAG - you're it. I am tagging you to participate in a meme. The first player of this game starts with the topic five weird habits of yourself, and people who get tagged need to write an entry about their five weird habits as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose the next five people to be tagged and link to their web journals. Don't forget to leave a comment in their blog or journal that says You have been tagged (assuming they take comments) and tell them to read yours."

What the heck...here they are...

1- I like to try and fit through pet doors.


2-I like to sing along to t.v. show themes.



3- I always forget to open shades or blinds when home during the day.


4- There is at least one moment everyday I think about being a superhero.


5- I am addicted to t.v documentaries about Bigfoot, Nessie, Yeti, etc.

Ode to Snails

I grew up in New York. I lived in Westchester County outside the city and spent many summer months exploring the forests upstate in the Catskill Mountains. As a kid I discovered giant black ants, salamanders, deer, raccoons, chipmunks, woodchucks, snakes, frogs, crayfish and the list could go on.

In all my kid naturalist adventures I never ever saw a snail! There were plenty of "slugs" but they are snails without a shell. I just thought a snail was like a 4 leaf clover...they exist but rare and impossible to find.

Then my family moved to Los Angeles. One evening in my parent's backyard... I saw a snail, with a huge shell crawling across the brick patio.

It was like I saw bigfoot or the loch ness monster! I ran looking for a camera but could not find, I yelled for family members to come witness but they were out for the evening! I was alone with this mythical beast!

I did not know in California, they were everywhere, ordinary...the norm.

Today, much of their mystery has been replaced with the everyday fear I might step on one and hear that horrible crunch under my feet coming home in the evening.

I saw my friend Jason (a recent North Carolina transplant) months back react the same way seeing one crawling across a sidewalk. So I know I'm not alone in once seeing the snail as a legend.

They are unique, funny and weird creatures that I still often stop to watch like a kid adventurer. Here are a few cartoons I did inspired by them.

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Childrens Book Portfolio I

These are 2 hidden picture children's books I illustrated for Checkerboard Press - The Great ABC Search and The Great 123 Search- published in 1991. Although out of print they can still be found on Amazon. Each book contained 20, 11'' x 16", watercolor and black ink, 2 page spreads illustrations.

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