The Factory Studio

07/13/2026

Everything you need to know about why I paint monsters is hiding in these three books.

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This Little Monster
Oil, acrylic & mixed media on canvas
12 × 12 inches

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As a child, the world is poetry, storybooks, imagination… and monsters that only live under the bed.

“Home I return across the sea,
And go to bed with backward looks
At my dear Land of Story-Books.”
—Robert Louis Stevenson, The Land of Story-Books

Then come the years when you’re still figuring out who you are. I was in my twenties, newly transplanted from California to Texas. One of my favorite things to do was visit the rotating exhibits at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth. After one of those visits, I brought home the From Renoir to Picasso catalog. I didn’t know it then, but it would become the bookmark for that chapter of my life.

My life at the time looked like one of those Impressionist paintings. The details hadn’t come into focus yet, but I trusted the picture that was emerging. I trusted where life was headed.

Then come the family sagas. The stories we inherit. The conflicting memories. The versions of the truth that never quite line up.

As I was styling this painting, I opened the cover of the poetry book I’d always believed had been given to me as a child. Inside was a handwritten inscription dated January 25, 1968. I was born in 1971. The inscription had always been there. I had simply never noticed it.

It wasn’t a life-changing discovery. It was a detail. But it reminded me that the biggest shifts in our lives don’t always come from finding something new. Sometimes they come from finally noticing what was there all along. How fitting that something I’d believed since childhood simply wasn’t true. Not every forgotten detail changes your life… but every one teaches you to look a little closer.

Maybe that’s what my monsters are all about. They were never really monsters at all. They’re people carrying histories we don’t always see. We all learn to soften the hard edges, put on a smile, and keep moving forward. The flowers don’t erase the sharp teeth… they just remind us that beauty and reality have always existed side by side.

07/11/2026

A few years ago, I made a pretty big detour to visit San Sebastian on Spain’s northern coast. I did it for one reason: I wanted to come home and say I’d surfed the Basque Coast.

Now, don’t mistake me for some serious surfer who’s chasing waves around the world. I’ve surfed most of my life, and I’m pretty average at best. I just love being out there. That’s the feeling I wanted to paint.

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Good Vibes
Acrylic on canvas
11 × 14 inches

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The funny thing is, I didn’t set out to paint the ocean. This canvas began as one of my leftover palettes. Whenever I have paint left from a larger painting, it ends up on one of these small canvases. Once it’s full, I step back to see if an image begins to emerge—kind of like looking at clouds until you start seeing shapes.

The swirling paint reminded me of the beautiful chaos of the sea. But surfing isn’t all about the waves. Most of the time, you’re simply sitting on your board, waiting for one. I added the broad horizontal brushstrokes to capture the calm and peace that exist alongside all that movement.

The surfer in this painting is a worry doll. Worry dolls are tiny handmade dolls from Guatemala. Tradition says you tell them your worries before you go to sleep, and they carry them for you.

I use worry dolls throughout my work because, to me, they’re reminders to put life in perspective. Sometimes you just need to let go of the worry and live in the moment. I’ve always thought that’s a pretty good way to move through life.

That’s exactly what happened in San Sebastián. Surfing never happened that day. The ocean was flat. Instead, I drove inland to Bilbao and wandering through one of the most remarkable museums in the world.

If you’ve ever surfed—or even just stood in the ocean—you know the feeling. The chaos. The calm. The peace that somehow exists alongside it all.

When you look at this painting, I’m curious …. can you feel it?

06/18/2026

You spend two hours creating a graphic.

Client sends your graphic back after running it through AI.

Client likes that version better.



👊🌿

06/15/2026

Has anyone ever given you an idea for a painting and your immediate reaction was to reject it simply because it wasn’t your idea?

Or because somewhere deep down it felt like they were saying, “I don’t like what you’re painting. Paint this instead.”

I’ve been wrestling with that one for a week.

The funny thing is, the more I rejected it, the more it nagged at me in the back of my head. To the point where it stopped being a suggestion and became a challenge.

How could I take this very pedestrian idea and make it my own?

So today I finally opened my sketchbook.

And now I’m a little annoyed because I kind of like where it’s going.

05/22/2026

The last couple of weeks have been full in the best way possible.

Two of my kids graduated from college — Caleb from the University of Louisville and Gaby from UC Davis School of Law — and our family has been moving nonstop between celebrations, airports, late nights, reunions, and all the emotions that come with watching your kids step into new chapters of life.

This video is the train that runs through the University of Louisville campus, captured on graduation night. (🎥 thx .lewis_ )

There’s something about trains at night that always feels bigger than the moment itself. Like movement. Change. Momentum. Time carrying people in different directions all at once.

So if I’ve been a little quieter here lately… that’s why.

But even while I’ve been away from the studio more than usual, my brain hasn’t stopped creating. I’ve been sketching constantly, filling notebooks, collecting thoughts, and somewhere in all this movement, a few new creative seeds got planted.

So while life has been moving fast… creatively, something is always growing. 🌳

03/28/2020

Hello Factory Friends! I'll provide you all with an update soon with what I've been doing since closing The Factory, but right now it is important that I get this information out to help my community. We have all witnessed the long lines at Costco and major grocery stores in response to COVID19. I have been working with Long Beach Fresh to create a grocery guide to help Long Beacheons navigate through all this chaos. The list covers all of Long Beach but I personally tackled the North Long Beach area ... rich with Mexican bogeas and international groceries ranging from Thai to Cambodian. All of these small markets report having a daily abundance of fresh fruits, vegetables, meats and seafood with very reasonable pricing and little to no crowds. Grocery-wide, there are certain items in high demand, and toilet paper tops the list. Shopping early in the morning is the best advice provided by all grocery markets. Rice is another of those hard to find items. Island Pacific Supermarket provides a preorder system and in a few short days, they will have your bags of rice ready for pickup. Long Beach Beer Lab and The Merchant bakes bread daily with on-line ordering, prepay and curbside pick-up. Local restaurants like Rasselbock - Kitchen & Beer Garden are taking advantage of their wholesale status and ordering hard to acquire items like milk, butter and pasta ... and selling those items directly to their customers daily out of their restaurant. Most importantly, this list provides details on markets that have special shopping hours for seniors/disabled. Message me if you have any updates or tips. Be safe out there Long Beach!

Getting groceries has certainly become one of the trickiest aspects of the COVID19 response for local residents. At Long Beach Fresh, we believe everyone should have access to fresh, healthy food. While local grocers have adjusted their hours, enforced social distancing, increased their stocking, cr...