The Auto-Biography

Music was a big part of my life growing up. I heard music all around me as a child. My mother was always playing her old LPs on our turntable when I was a little girl. My sister and I already knew that once we started cleaning on Saturdays the stereo was going on to keep us motivated. My parents would play everything from ABBA and the Beatles to Julio Iglesias and Jose Luis Rodriguez. I remember thinking I wanted to be a singer when I grew up.

When I started school I discovered a love for art. My father, being the artist that he was, taught me a thing or two and from that point on all I wanted to do was draw. I'd take out comics from the library and watch cartoons like Thundercats, He-Man and She-Ra and try to draw the characters I saw. I dreamed that one day I'd be a great cartoonists.

As I got older I started writing short stories, poetry and small plays. I must've gotten that from my father as well since he was a journalist back home. So at about age 10 I thought I'd try becoming a writer.

It was about this time that I became the official photographer of the family. Every time we went on outings or vacations no one could take the camera away from me. I started to develop a love of photography. Dear Uncle JL and late aunt Pety taught me how to develop film in my uncle's homemade darkroom. They'd use my sister and I as models for their various projects. I learned about filters and lighting and everything that had to do with photography through them. I think they mostly did it to keep me busy and my mind off of everything else that was going on in my life at the time. But all in all, it was a great new way of expressing myself.

When it was time to choose a high school my parents convinced me to get into fashion. My mother worked as a tailor for Saks Fifth Avenue and my grandmother was a pattern-maker with Rothschild Clothing Company and taught me to sew at an early age. And since my father thought I should choose a more practical career (as opposed to singing or drawing) I applied for Fashion Industries High School and decided to study Fashion Design for 4 years.

Of course life happened along the way and I ended up dropping out. I always planned to go back to school, and after acing my GED I enrolled at LaGuardia Community College in Long Island City and majored in Fine Arts for a year, in hopes of pursuing a career as a children's book writer/illustrator. I also enrolled in more formal classes of photography to further my interest in the subject.

But as my luck would have it, life's obstacles got in the way again and I became a gypsy for a few years taking on various secretarial jobs that were never satisfying.

Finally, after getting angry one day I decided I was going to take ultimate control of my life. I moved back to NYC determined to finish my academic career and readmitted into LaGuardia CC. My first semester back I took a course called "the Art of Film". It opened my eyes to the astonishing fact that, although I was somewhat good at many different things I was never really great at any ONE thing. Yet film seemed to be the only field I could incorporate everything I've learned throughout my life and apply it in one place. And so here I am once again, an aspiring Filmmaker /Artist trying to make my career happen.

Wish me luck! ;o)