while living on as little as possible

I have been off-and-on a freelance illustrator, touring puppeteer, and mediocre accordionist, although I have really yet to break even doing any of those things. At some point I was an instructor of drawing (Ex'pression College for Digital Arts). I've also been an Apprentice and Shop Foreman at Blair Thomas & Co. chamber puppet theater, with whom I performed at the Field Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and the Pritzker Pavillion. I was Managing Director (and accordionist) for the Corpus Callosum music & performance art ensemble, 2009 recipients of the Belle Foundation Fellowship. I've been exhibiting puppetry at Maker Faire Bay Area since 2010, and received the Editor's Choice Award in 2011. My cardboard sculptures have been commissioned by the Exploratorium Museum and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. I have been an artist in residence of the Tinkering Studio at the Exploratorium, which is about the most prestigious title in the world, so I figure I can die happy now. (Check out the Art of Tinkering book!)

In highschool I once submitted a draft to a local comic publishing company, but they politely declined. I started making performable sequential art in 2004, mostly involving mechanisms with a high rate of fail and illustrations that require way too much patience on the part of an audience; I perform these and other artworks under the title Villainette. Failing Sky is my first graphic novel.