Fashion before working at GQ was just fun.  As a young artist, it was a way to entertain yourself.  How far could you push it and still be within the parameters of taste.  At least running around the halls of the fashion capitol of the world. 

     One day I wore four belts under a conservative navy blazer, I remember it gave our fashion director a laugh. The question became, how many scarves, watches or accessories could you wear at once and not be ridiculous?

     One of the most entertaining people in the building was a young English girl named Isabella Blow.  Isabella was Anna Wintour’s assistant then.  Wintour was just the creative director who had come to Vogue from New York Magazine.  The old guard of Grace Mirabella and Polly Mellon were still entrenched on that 13th floor.

     As a young artist right out of art school I was still often sketching at my desk or writing poetry.  Because of the cramped quarters in that office at GQ, it was there that I taught myself the language of Leonardo da Vinci.  I learned how to write and read backwards to acquire some privacy in the office.   My artistic notes then became illegible to my coworkers.   Writing backwards and forwards is still a practice I use today in my art.  The words just become pure marks not to be read.  Oddly from developing that practice, it increased my ability to perceive things visually rather quickly. 

     Trying to find my way in the world as a young artist, Italian Vogue in Milan said they would hire me.  They said I spoke English too fast, and I told them they spoke Italian too fast.  On the 13th floor at Vogue at 350 Madison, oddly, nobody hardly spoke, communication was mostly non-verbal.  But, I eventually chose to return to graduate school and continue my path in the world of the fine arts.