Destination & Travel

My two greatest passions in life are art and travel. I’ve been extremely fortunate throughout my life to have been able to travel the globe, and merge my loves together. For both work and pleasure, I’ve visited many exciting places where I have met interesting and inspirational people. My love for travel began early. I grew up a block off of the legendary Route 66, in San Dimas, California. It was my gateway for many travels across the United States on family road trip vacations. Later, in my teenage years, our family vacations would venture further out by sea and plane to explore the Hawaiian Islands, the Caribbean and much of Mexico. It was during these travels that I decided to attend art school at the University of Hawaii, Manoa, where I could live the island lifestyle, and surf when I wasn’t in class.

Throughout my career I’ve been creating artwork that reflects my love for travel. At FingerPrints of California, I created multiple stationery and gift programs that were travel based. They became very popular at souvenir and gift stores throughout the US, and several are still in circulation today.

Many of my Carta Bella Paper Co. Collections feature travel themes. I have created multiple collections focusing on cruising, air travel, adventure travel, and specific destinations. My retro road trip collection, “Are We There Yet?” became extremely popular with collectors of National Parks posters and ephemera. Due to their popularity I was offered the opportunity to design and illustrate Echo Park Paper’s, Carta Bella’s parent company, giftware travel calendars. These calendars featured US and world cities and landmarks. They were produced as limited-collector editions. In 2020 I was commissioned to design two collections that focused on US and World maps. The collections, Cartography No. 1 and 2, featured highly realistic maps of states, cities, and countries. I took inspiration from vintage Rand McNally roadmaps and atlases to establish the look of the collection, and Cartography’s papers are often mistaken for actual vintage maps.

One of the greatest things about working digitally is that I am able to work from almost anywhere that I go. Carta Bella’s “Let’s Cruise” was designed and illustrated as I sailed from Rome to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida on a transatlantic cruise. I love to bring my laptop, iPad, and sketchbook with me to actual locals that I am designing for. Many of the collections that I have created for Carta Bella have been illustrated in part from beach houses, AirBNB’s, and cruise ships around the globe. I think of these as my traveling studios with ever-changing views. Thankfully, today’s technology easily allows me the luxury of taking my studio on the road and connect with my clients as simply as if I was just around the corner.