Vintage Sports

My two greatest passions in life are art and travel. I’ve been extremely fortunate throughout life to have been able to travel the globe, and merge my loves together. For both work and pleasure, I’ve visited many exciting places where I have met interesting and inspirational people. I grew up a block off of the legendary Route 66, in Glendora, California. It was my gateway for many travels across the United States on family road trip vacations. Later, in my teenage years, we’d venture further out by sea and plane to explore the Hawaiian Islands, the Caribbean and much of Mexico. It was during these travels that I decided to attend art school at the University of Hawaii, Manoa, where I could revel in island life, and surf when I wasn’t in class.

Throughout my career I’ve been creating artwork that reflects my love for travel. At FingerPrints of California, I created multiple stationery and gift programs that were travel based. They became very popular at souvenir and gift stores throughout the US, and several are still in circulation today.

In 2006 I moved to San Francisco and begin working with Agenda 9, a boutique design and marketing studio. My clients included several book publishers and brick and mortar stores, and I spent several years developing marketing and promotional programs to promote their retail product lines. It was during this time that I started creating framed poster art for Sail Away Travel, a Bay Area based travel brand that served several niche markets, mainly focusing on women travelers and senior travelers. This is where my vintage-style look was forged.

I moved to Minneapolis several years later, where I decided to focus my career exclusively on design and illustration; the two areas of commercial art that I absolutely love. My style had become popular, and I opened The Lake House Studio to showcase my offerings. Immediately, Carta Bella Paper Co., contracted me to become an exclusive artist for their hobby paper collections and fledgling stationery/giftware offerings. Over the past five years I have created some of their most poplar offerings, 63 collections to date.

Many of my Carta Bella Collections feature travel themes. I have created multiple collections focusing on cruising, air travel, adventure travel, and specific destinations. My retro road trip collection, “Are We There Yet?”, became extremely popular with collectors of National Parks posters and ephemera. The line became so popular that I was offered the opportunity to design and illustrate Echo Park Paper’s, Carta Bella’s parent company, giftware travel calendars. These calendars featured US and world cities and landmarks. They were produced as limited, collector editions and proved very popular with collectors of my artwork.

In 2020 I was commissioned to design two collections that focused on US and world maps. The collections, Cartography No. 1 and 2, featured highly realistic maps of states, cities, and countries. I took inspiration from vintage Rand McNally roadmaps and atlases to establish the look of the collection, and Cartography’s papers are often mistaken for actual vintage maps.

I was able to work on “Let’s Cruise” as I sailed from Rome, Italy to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida on a Holland America Ship. I love to bring my laptop, iPad, and sketchbook with me to actual locals where I can escape the cold Minnesota winters and work in warmer, tropical climates. Many of the collections that I have created for Carta Bella have been illustrated in part from beach houses, AirBNB’s, and cruise ships around the globe. I think of these as my traveling studios with a view. Today’s technology easily allows me the luxury of taking my studio on the road and connect with my clients as simply as if I was just a few miles away.