I was nearly born in the cramped rear seat of a Citröen 2CV, a minor detail overshadowed by my unusual early years. Raised by British expatriates who left damp Blighty for France's alpine chill, I grew up in a town steeped in revolutionary history—the birthplace of the French Revolution.

My earliest cultural references were French and Belgian ‘Bandes Dessinées’. The comics of Asterix, Lucky Luke and TinTin mixed with clumsily dubbed American TV shows like Starsky and Hutch, and cryptic Japanese sci-fi. In the school yard, my brothers and I faced mockery as "les rosbif" for our English roots, and that "outsider" identity was about to evolve again.

At seven, we emigrated to the Bay Area. Dressed as the Three Musketeers with my siblings, we wandered curiously into our new world. Our sports idols would quickly switch from Platini to Joe Montana, our jumpers became sweaters and we would take our lunches to school in brown paper bags with sandwiches of peanut butter and jam on french baguette.

We quickly became the 'French kids,' a label both worn and scorned. Our shared otherness forged a bond beyond geography or blood, instead rooted in passion learning all about our new world. We embraced subcultures—skateboarding, BMX bikes and found refuge in drawing, shaping our identity through creativity rather than nationality.

Identity, I’ve learned, isn’t fixed but always changing—a truth my brothers and I lived every day, moving between different worlds and versions of ourselves. My mother, a fine artist by trade, began developing her own career as a curious thing called a graphic designer. She patiently showed me how to scan my drawings into the computer to recolor them, and my world expanded even further.

My own creative career began at fourteen in a small screen-printing shop, guided by Ron Smoot, a self-taught mentor who taught me rubylith cutting, Letraset type-setting, and Corel Draw. Ron introduced me to graphic design and commercial illustration, where I felt I truly belonged. From these roots, I worked in apparel graphics and production studios and now lead teams on global ad campaigns that deliver real business results. My love for art and design remains strong, with daily sketching as a personal refuge in a world where I’ve found my true place.