About
So, what's my story?
Well, there are many versions of it. Here’s one of them:
I’m a human who finds the world at once inspiring and frustrating. I try my best to hold that tension in a useful and creative way.
I’m a believer in the life-giving power of delight. To me, the physical world has endless potential for delight, and so does the world of storytelling.
I find that too often, we convince ourselves that there’s a “serious” and “utilitarian” way of doing something, and we joylessly design, communicate, construct, and organize—leaving only incidental cracks for delight and humanity to emerge.
All of us are capable of generating delight, and it’s my opinion that delight can open up a bigger-hearted version of each of us.
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But of course, we face bigger challenges—at both the local and global scales—than merely an insufficiently charming world.
Ecological degradation, social alienation and repression, environmental injustice, hunger, poverty, extraction-driven economies. Or cities that are by design (if not fully intentionally) hostile to the poor, the young, the elderly, the single, those with mobility issues, racialized groups, women. These lists go on.
There’s so much to do toward the end of a justly sustainable future.
I believe that these systemic ills must be reversed, and that they can be reversed—thoughtfully, democratically, and humbly.
And that creating a pathway lined with delight and built with compassion is both possible and necessary. Again, this applies to everything from design and planning to organizing to communicating.
I do my best to combine systems thinking (the ability to see and connect the dots, and understand how they mutually interact) with a variety of creative storytelling approaches that respect the audience. I light up most when this is applied toward socially and ecologically just ends.
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So what got me to where I am today? Surely, living in urban and rural settings across six states and four countries (Spain, El Salvador, Egypt, U.S.) helped me gain perspective. Undoubtedly, my past lives as a high school teacher and then a researcher played their own part.
My background in ecological design certainly primed me to ask questions early and often, about context, audience, and invisible connections.
All of that and my curiosity got me to where I am, and wherever I'm headed. “Why does this city look like this? Why do we treat these folks that way? Why do we talk in these terms and whose power does that protect?”
There’s endless generative potential in approaching the world—and any creative project, whether building a story or something physical—with curiosity.
And I take joy in bringing that spirit to all my work. Because there’s much worthy work to be done, and we can also make that work delightful.
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But this is just one tiny window into one version of my story. Would you like to chat more? Send me an email, or find me on LinkedIn (where you can also see what I do for work).
Alternatively, I spend a lot of time at two of the best coffee shops in the world: Davis Street Espresso and Wayward Coffee, both on W. Davis Street in Oak Cliff, Dallas, TX. You might find me there reading or drawing. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯