Can you give us a little background about yourself?

I am from Atlanta Georgia originally. I grew up in an extremely creative environment. My mother, Fran Welch, was a huge inspiration to me while growing up. She’s an outstanding artist in her own right and creates amazing work through all mediums such as canvas painting, clay work and photography. So at an extremely early age my twin brother, Brian, and I were exposed to a lot of different art forms. Brian is an animation supervisor at Blur Studio where I am currently. To have someone that I am so close with accompany me on my journey to Los Angeles and through my career is truly remarkable and I feel extremely lucky to have his support.

When thinking about any particular experience that inspired me to want to become an animator, I would have to say simply that playing with toys as a child was probably the biggest clue now that I think about it. Posing them and being so dynamic and detailed with their movements as I was blowing up GI joes or making spider-man do flips in the air. The specific film that sticks out to me that got me so interested was Jurassic Park. That movie today still stands up to current visual fx films. Seeing those dinosaurs moving around so fluidly was awesome!

During high school I was a veterinary technician as I do believe growing up on a farm really drove me to. My love for animals and the natural world is still around today, and I still volunteer and raise money for any non-government funded animal sanctuaries. I was always creating artwork on the side but never really took it that seriously. Once I visited my brother at college and saw what he was doing, I knew that was something I wanted to learn about.