He took a military/balletic route. He graduated from the Naval Academy in 2001, earned a master’s degree eight months later, then served aboard the aircraft carrier USS Kennedy (CV-67). While in the Naval Reserve he danced ballet with various small groups. After working as a reporter/photographer for the Pentagon’s press service, he went back to school to study imagery in American culture, completing a Ph.D. dissertation on art and the Iraq war in spring 2011. Throughout, he used the practice of painting to digest the stagecraft around him, earning the chance to show and sell that work, and eventually he took on painting as his main vocation. These days he lives and works in Portland, Oregon.