Love the Desert
In 2020, my wife and I decided to move out to La Quinta to get some space from Los Angeles, and it ended up being exactly what we needed at the time. Being out there felt strangely protective - wide open, quiet, and surrounded by heat and desert air. Life moved much slower, in a grounding way. With the mountains always in view, everything felt more solid and still, like the world had finally taken a deep breath. It makes sense to me now why so many people choose this area to retire.
"The desert is a natural extension of inner silence"
That time also shifted my creative process in a big way. I started working in larger formats and taught myself how to paint after years of mostly illustrating with pens. I was drawn to capturing the sunsets, especially how the light breaks across layers of mountains, each one fading softer into the distance. I kept working design gigs remotely, but I always made sure there was an art project going alongside them. There was something about living at the base of those mountains that made creativity feel less forced and more natural to me.
