about me
born and raised in the amazing state of utah, i grew up longing to leave but now can’t bear the thought of leaving the mountains behind. i’ve been working desk jobs the past few years, and am currently with a company that i really love. i have no real career aspirations, aside from my dreams of spellbound or my crafting gigs taking off. don’t mistake me for unambitious though!
in the summers i like to spend a lot of time in the uinta mountains. i go camping at least a couple times a season, and often go just to spend the day out there playing ocarina and painting the scenery. i am learning to identify wild plants and mushrooms to start foraging. currently i have a pot sprouting up lots of wild strawberries, which has definitely been an inspiration to learn more. i picked those up at a lake that my partner and i frequent a lot for some good fishing.
i am also an avid animal lover, and have a healthy collection of my own. i have three cats, and a chinchilla. i have had Baguira for 11 years, and he’s been with me through everything. my partner and i got Cooper (6) together and he’s definitely more attached to him than i. our third cat, Jiji (2) was unexpected. i found him on the first day of my current job, feral and living in dire straits. i scooped him up and he’s been my little shadow since! my chinchilla bean (9) is a one in a million gal, she loves to be pet and cuddled unlike most chins.
indie developer
we came up with spellbound a little over two years ago now. it’s a project i’m on and off with as the inspiration comes and goes, but something that’s always in the background somewhere. ever since i remade all my assets i’ve definitely been more driven.
inspired by some of my favorite cozy games like stardew valley and animal crossing, it’ll have a magical twist to it. it will have all my favorite parts of those games like farming, foraging, community building… but imagine foraging magical herbs and mushrooms, cultivating rare plants for making potions, taming and tending wondrous beasts!
too much to do, too little time
in my free time i am typically working on my hobbies. part of what “so very little time” stands for is the fact i never have time to do it all. i like traditional art, digital art, pixel art, to crochet, sew, make jewelry , sculpt clay, play guitar and ocarina… my main focus is typically my pixel art for spellbound, but the creative flow comes and goes and that’s when i work on my other countless projects.
i used to feel like an unworthy artist, because i have no niche. i am not the best at anything i do, and sometimes it feels like i never get anything done. i tried to “niche down” like they all say you should, but it didn’t make me happy. these days, i celebrate being kind of good at lots of things instead of being perfect at one thing. i know it’s crazy but there’s still so many other things i’d like to do, there’s just so very little time.
the culinary arts
growing up, my mom didn’t really cook for us. we were a mac & cheese and chicken nuggets type of family. but she DID love to bake, and i grew up helping her in the kitchen where i could. i have lots of fears about the food industry, things like chemical ingredients and contamination. i like to avoid eating processed food as much as i can, so i started cooking from scratch and learned to bake to soothe my sweet tooth.
it started with learning to make breads and doughs, but now i can make half a dozen different kinds of cookies, cupcakes, hard candies… whatever i’m craving when i feel like baking some goodies. my personal favorite are my linzer tarts which i started making as a tradition to honor my daddy who’s since passed in 2007.