I grew up in San Diego, in the northern suburbs that were once the providence of coyotes and tomato fields, now an endless sea of terra cotta roofs, fresh asphalt and strip malls. 

Back when I was in elementary school, migrant workers from Mexico and points south would make their home in the canyon directly below my home. As a young boy, these people with their strange language and customs scarred me, but my parents would have none of this, inviting them in for meals and showers, dissolving the difference between “the other” and “us.” 

Borders are nothing but lines, but have been twisted into a different meaning, sometimes protection, often heartbreak. I work in neon, effectively colored lines, which are bent, twisted and manipulated into art.