Visual artist, painter, designer, 3D technology / color expert, art director and creative leader.

Each weekend, we’d slog through the elements—mud, rain, frigid cold and so on—to set up her booth and welcome customers.

I was the natural salesperson of our family, adept at matching a visitor’s need to the utility of the perfect bowl or pot. Over time, I learned that the rewards of hard work outweighed the discomfort of wet socks.

My mother’s profession came with other benefits, too: in addition to her artistry, my brother and I were continually exposed to multiple mediums from a young age. We learned that creativity, invention and resourcefulness (in equal measure to tenacity and grit), were necessary to navigating the world. And that the purpose of art isn’t only to express ideas or beauty or controversy. It’s a vessel for empathy—a means of relating to others.

I completed my undergraduate fine arts degree at the Lyme Academy of Fine Art, and I always tell people that no matter how much time passes, the rigorous training of my formal education still informs my distinct perspective on color, my speed and precision as an artist. I first began putting my skills to practical use at Hasbro, where I started my career as a toy painter.

Eventually I left the woods of Canterbury for those of Portland, Oregon, and a position at renowned stop-motion animation house, LAIKA.

My first job there was hand-painting puppet faces for the critically lauded Coraline (2009), however, my role quickly evolved into solving broader challenges inside the rapid prototyping department. Perhaps owing to my childhood, I was known at LAIKA for using whatever offhand materials weren’t in high demand among the other artists, and a knack for layering unexpected colors to achieve specific effects. The work was successful, and parlayed into the development of a complex, 3D color-mapping index system for machines that repeatedly failed to achieve the rich variations of approved prototypes.

Ultimately, I began working cross-functionally to introduce fine-art techniques for character paint to 3D modeling software applications, which became standard during the production of ParaNorman (2012), as well as three more acclaimed films: The Boxtrolls (2104), Kubo and the Two Strings (2016), and The Missing Link (2020). Kubo and the Two Strings won the 2016 Scientific and Technology Oscar® for its rapid prototyping process. The experience at LAIKA was pivotal to my career, and in turn, I was able to propose a similar 3D prototyping innovation to Nike. Under the direction of the brand’s iconic designer, Tinker Hatfield, I worked in the Innovation (“Space”) Kitchen on several concept-to-proof projects that leveraged proprietary technologies to evolve the company’s color process design. 

I was able to further my career at LAIKA, for example, by never turning away from the next piece of the puzzle to solve, or thinking it wasn’t my responsibility as an artist to offer fresh ideas around cross-functional issues.

I bring this energy and outlook to everything I do—particularly as a mentor, advocate and leader—and I love helping others do the same. Over many years in different professional environments (even progressive ones), I’ve come to believe that the call for diverse perspectives in creative work has never been more urgent. Without this effort, our ability as artists to resonate with audiences, convey empathy, to tell shared stories, will be dramatically lessened. I’ve led initiatives wherever possible throughout my career, from supporting junior professionals with portfolios and websites to posing strategic questions to leaders about internal representation. Art is certainly a reflection of who we are—but in today’s world especially, it has a powerful capacity to show us who we can be.