This adventure of mine started at a very early age and was inspired by and dedicated to my dad Jimmy – a hot rodder and motorcycle enthusiast in his day, and the most unorthodox basement mechanic I have known.
Early on in my school days, my notebooks and binder covers were filled with drawings of cars and cool band logos, as most kids did, much to the dismay of my teachers. I have always been interested in anything I could take apart and put back together and especially the cool drag racers like Don ”the Snake” Prudhomme and Tom “Mongoo$e” McEwen, which were my most treasured Matchbox cars. My matchbox car collection was extensive and broken into two categories – the “good” ones that were for looking at, and the ones that were for the full on – heated weekend competitions, on the Hot Wheels track in the basement with the buddies – crash and bash and speed ready. I knew this was a passion and would be something in my life that I would pursue in some way.
Dad was always in for the races and taught me about twisting wrenches, doing it yourself, and most importantly – “that leftover parts from any repair are just fine and were probably not needed anyway”. He let me loose on his camper truck one summer and by the time I was done, he had the baddest truck camper in the campground – a heavy rumbling big block 454, chromed out, and any performance goodies I could swap out – drawing over all the campground dads for a beer and BS and to curse out his son for the mufflers that keep falling off. Really dad – open headers are cool. This started me down the rabbit hole for sure. When I wasn’t under the hood – playing with motors and building trucks and bikes, I was drawing or taking pictures of them. High school was all about mechanics class and art class. All us buddies digging in to performance mods on our cars every chance we could, so that we were ready for the coveted Saturday 2am street drags at the edge of town, and the bragging rights from any win. Growing up in Canada, there was a lot of time in the long cold winters to build in some killer new upgrades to grab just a little more horsepower for the big spring roll outs and bragging rights at “bullshit” corner every weekend.
Now you would think I would have ended up twisting wrenches for a living with all that passion, but instead chose to go to art school, and not just once but twice. 4yrs for fine art and then realizing that food and shelter were important, back in for another 3yrs for commercial graphic design which lead to building a business out of it for the past 20yrs. All along – still taking photos of cars and bikes at car shows and any event I could find something cool at.
So – here we are – 20yrs later, I have finally made a decision to combine my passion for art and photography with my love of the mechanical, hot rods, rat rods, rockabilly choppers, and all things vintage. Having worked to help clients in every industry imaginable build their marketing materials and businesses and learning so much along the way, it is now time for me to play more, dust of the negatives (yes actual negatives for the early images), the pencils, and put all these skills to work and have some fun.
I love creating original images and designs that I am proud to share and am building a second business around it – Dirty Monkey Kustoms. Hitting car shows, meeting people, seeing some incredible cars and bikes, and sharing my designs on t shirts and photography as I go. What could be better…? Much cooler than mowing the lawn on a sunny Saturday!