For a long time I thought I was supposed to pick a lane. Painter or builder. Fine art or craft. Instagram loves a single aesthetic in a neat grid; grant applications want a thesis statement. My brain doesn't work that way. One week I'm chasing a color problem on canvas — the cyan web and splatter language in Galexy Far — the next I'm cutting steel for a steampunk rifle sculpture because an idea needs weight and shadow you can't fake with pigment alone.

It isn't distraction — it's cross-training

Switching mediums forces different kinds of decisions. Painting asks about surface, illusion, and tempo. Metal asks about structure, gravity, and consequence — hot metal does not care about your plans. When I come back to a brush after working in three dimensions, I notice edges differently. When I return to the shop after a long painting stretch, I'm less precious about "ruining" a piece because I've remembered that materials can be cut, welded, and reworked.

The leaf-print series in 2026 is a good example. Pressed leaves through acrylic on black and white canvas — delicate, graphic, seasonal. The welded nut-and-bolt figures in the gallery are the opposite energy: hardware store bones, personality welded on. Same studio, same hands, different questions. Neither one makes the other a hobby.

What holds it together

The thread isn't always a visual style. Sometimes it's curiosity, or play, or a stubborn question I'm circling from different angles. Building Mushy-Lisa for Imaginarium Albany pulled papier-mâché, fabric, resin, and festival install into one object taller than my living room. That's not a side quest — it's the same drive that keeps me marbling canvases for MoonBloom or running a 3D print batch on the Flashforge.

Even Genius Repair fits. Small engines and automotive work train a diagnostic mindset: what's actually broken, what's cosmetic, what will fail if you ignore it. I use that in the studio when a piece feels "almost done" but something's off structurally — in composition, not just in carburetors.

Showing the overlap on purpose

I organized this site's gallery by album instead of medium on purpose. Paintings sit next to weld photos and in-progress shots because that's how the work actually happens. The articles go longer on process; the live stream shows the middle when I'm brave enough to leave the camera on.

If you work in more than one medium, you don't owe anyone a tidy label. You owe yourself honesty about what each practice gives you — and permission to let them talk to each other. I'm still building this site, still opening a Troy gallery in August, still figuring out how much overlap to put on one wall. If you're the same kind of restless maker: you're not behind. You're multilingual.

August 14 and the wall ahead

The Strange Art opening is the next test: can paintings, welds, mushrooms, and sketchbook pages share physical walls without feeling like a yard sale? I think yes, if the through-line is honesty — objects that know what they are. AdSense reviewers and gallery visitors might both want the same thing: proof that a human made choices here, not a template. This site is my answer to that question, one album and one article at a time.