Growing up in Mill Valley California, across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco I have always been close to nature, this closeness to the surrounding environment has allowed me to understand the sense of place that is so important to any and all projects. I have always had a fascination with creation and the artistic process needed to create something of value, my creative and artistic career started at a young age which was greatly nurtured by the area in which I grew up. Mill Valley, a place with deep history and connection to the arts was one that allowed me to find my voice as the creative individual that I am today.  All this started with my grandfather being a respected painter and carpenter. After his death in 2008 I found myself wanting to continue his creations not in the literal sense, but in a way that would honor his legacy as a creative and expressive individual, though I found myself trying things and in my eyes falling short of the desired outcome.

 

In 2010, I started school at the Academy of Art University where I thought that I would try my hand in the challenging and demanding field of Architecture, the unknowns were so great, the struggles so intense I thought there was no way I could make it. I found myself striving ever harder to find myself in this field as well to find myself as a creative person. These challenges and struggles in many ways have defined who I am, I never looked away when a challenge came into view, I used them to test myself, to prove to myself and everyone around that I am not what they thought. This gave me the strength, the ability, and the courage to overcome diversity in a way that I didn’t even possible. This to me was one of my greatest successes.

 

2016, having to convince the head of my department and other members of the faculty that I was ready to start my thesis was another great challenge, I thought I was ready, in fact I knew I was ready, though they thought I would fail. In the first semester of thesis I showed them all that I was here, ready, confident, and doing the work that they never thought I could do. As well in the first half of my thesis I met the love of my life Olesya Koval, and with her and our conversations, love, and passion for design I rose to the challenge. With her help and constant ability to test my ideas I was able to design and test something of substance, something that looked back at me, through me, and with this project I was able to better understand who I am as a person. My thesis was not only the hardest challenge I had overcome in my life but it was one of the most defining moments in my life. Having to struggle all those years to find myself, who I thought I was at a young age turned out to be so much different than who I turned out to be. I was able to produce a project that gave me the ability to be proud of what I had learned during my time at the Academy, though I was not the only one that was proud. The faculty that surrounded me during my time there as well the head of my department all voted my project the Most Outstanding Thesis and with that I was given the highest honor one can be given throughout a year of students.