Like many artists, I dreamed of becoming a cartoonist at Marvel Comics. After attending the High School for Art and Design in New York City, this dream became a reality when I had the surreal fortune to start my professional journey illustrating for my beloved Marvel. I later graduated from Parsons School of Design and went on to pursue a career in painting and illustration, publishing my watercolor paintings, first for greeting cards and then newspapers and magazines.  My favorite artists at this time were innovators like Howard Pyle, Frank Frazetta, Burton Silverman, David Stone Martin, as well as painters like Diego Rivera, Degas, Frida Kahlo, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Alice Neel.

In the late nineties, I  forged a career in design  and creative direction – starting as Design Manager for Churchill Downs, home of the Kentucky Derby.

Being a music freak, my work has placed a special concentration on jazz, which reflects my lifelong love of the form.  I've designed and illustrated several jazz CD covers for artists including Christian McBride, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Duke Ellington, and The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, and have designed jazz-related posters for the Newport Jazz Festival and The Jacksonville Jazz Festival as well as for the Smithsonian Museum. I served as art director for Blue Note Jazz Club in New York City and was handpicked by artistic director Wynton Marsalis to be creative director of Jazz at Lincoln Center where I designed marketing and promotional graphics for the 2004 opening of the "House of Swing", a new theater designed specifically for jazz music, the Frederick P. Rose Hall at Columbus Circle.

I teach drawing at Parsons School of Design | The New School and live in Brooklyn, where I write, paint and draw stuff.

I am represented by Painted Words Agency. Claire Morance, Agent


My first book, BIRTH OF THE COOL: HOW JAZZ GREAT MILES DAVIS FINDS HIS SOUND, was written by Kathy Cornell Berman and published by Page Street Kids, Spring 2019.
I illustrated the well reviewed BECAUSE OF YOU, JOHN LEWIS was written by Andrea Davis Pinkney and published by Scholastic, May 2022.

My latest book, MY DAD IS A DJ published in May of 2023 by Farrar Strauss & Giroux and co-written with Kathryn Erksine.

Partial Client list:
New York Times
Blue Note Records
Mack Avenue Records
Macmillan Publishing
FS&G Publishing
Def Jam Records
True Life records
Akashic Books
Scholastic Books
Peachtree Books
Page Street books
Carnegie Hall
Jazz At Lincoln Center
Churchill Downs
Hudson Hall
Spears Magazine
Rethinking Schools Magazine
Jazz Times Magazine
The Smithsonian
Brooklyn Academy Of Music
Rethinking Schools Magazine


Awards:

  • 2023 CBC Children’s Favorites Award List- Because of You, John Lewis

  • Kirkus Best Picture Books of the Year list – Because of You, John Lewis

  • 2022 Chicago Public Library Best Books of the Year – Because of You, John Lewis

  • 2022 American Illustration 41 – 2 pieces from the Columbia Journalism Review

  • 2022 Junior Library Guild Selection – Because of You, John Lewis

  • 2022 Amazon Best Book of the Month, Ages 6-8 – Because of You, John Lewis

  • Two Starred Reviews (Kirkus, SLJ) – Because of You, John Lewis

  • 2020 Bank Street College Best Children’s Books – Birth of The Cool

  • Starred Review (Kirkus) – Birth of The Cool