After graduating with an MFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, I moved to Berlin and began a very different career than the one I had imagined. When I entered the Visual Studies program at MCAD, I was a painter. When I left, I realized that painting wasn’t enough for me—I wanted to tell stories and communicate experiences and not be bound by one medium or a set of art world rules and I wanted to incorporate technology into my work. So I began to let go of the old rulebook of what it means to be an artist and look for a new way to take my wildly diverse creative background into the world.

When I discovered experience design, it was one of those moments when everything falls into place. It is a practice that feels comfortable and familiar to me because it ties so much of my past experience together—but what I really love about it is the newness of the field. Nothing is decided and we are changing it as we go. I think that that is so exciting and I am so thrilled to be a part of that.

My background as an artist is an essential part of who I am as an experience designer; I am by nature a curious person who’s been traveling the world on my own since I was young (ask me about the time I hitchhiked across France when I was 18). I believe the most important skill an artist has is the ability to be comfortable with the unknown and that is something I use to my advantage as a designer.