Three forms keep pulling me back: Abstract Expressionism, portraiture, and fashion illustration. Abstract Expressionism gives me freedom it's where I let emotion lead and the canvas becomes a record of feeling. Portraiture grounds me in story; rendering a face is rendering a whole inner life, especially Black faces that art history has too often overlooked. Fashion illustration is where movement, identity, and culture meet it lets me play with how we present ourselves to the world.

My inspiration starts where I stand. My lived experience as a Black man and artist in Atlanta, and the rhythms of the natural world around me. Nature reminds me beauty grows wild and shifts with the seasons; my community reminds me what's worth preserving. Together they're the breath of life: one teaches presence, the other teaches purpose. I find ideas walking outside, in conversations with elders, in music, in the quiet between brushstrokes, wherever life is being honest.

$25,000 would take EBC Loft from artist hustle to artist enterprise. Studio Infrastructure (32%): archival storage, equipment, and systems to protect a growing body of work. Marketing & Brand (24%): pro photography, a stronger website, collector-targeted campaigns. Premium Supplies (20%): archival materials for the Merman series and Icons Reimagined. Exhibition Production (16%): framing, printing, shipping. Operations (8%): bookkeeping and growth infrastructure.