About James

Hi. I’m James.

As you may have gathered, I’m a photographer, writer, researcher, and artist. I’m not quite a renaissance sort of man, but I do have some varied interests and hobbies, and they’re varied enough that I sometimes find myself a bit overwhelmed.

I was born and raised in North Texas, the Fort Worth area, and I moved around a bit in my 20s. I received a BA in Painting and Philosophy from the University of Illinois at Springfield in 2006, and an MA in Art History and Criticism (and Cultural Studies) from Stony Brook University in 2008. In short, I lived the Metroplex for many years, on the prairie for three, on an island for another three, and I’m now back in the Metroplex.

I miss New York, sometimes, but I’m happy enough to be back in North Texas, and especially happy-ish to be living in East Dallas, where there’s a broad mix of classes, races, genders, foods, and things to see.

By day, I research corporations for Equifax. By night, I paint, play with cats, maybe write some, maybe play with the iPhone, maybe go out and shoot houses or street scenes. And on the weekends, I shoot, lounge about, occasionally go out and find something fun to do, and try to get my writing on. Sometimes it works, sometimes not so much.

I keep strange hours: I’m up by 4:30am every day, and usually go to bed between 19:30 and 20:00. And I pretty much eat the same things every day at the same time: around 6am, I have two whole grain waffles (dry); around 12:30, I have a bowl of homemade soup—lately, it’s been a nice, spicy, vegetarian tortilla soup, and it’s been YUM; and around 17:00, I have a plate of nachos (homemade refried black beans, homemade tortilla chips, extra sharp cheddar cheese, and some pico de gallo if I have any handy).

Bemused, 28 August 2011

Two cats—Olive and Ivan—live with me, and I trained them to sleep in a crate at night. Come about 7:30pm, they’re ready to go to bed, and they make one of the best (read: persistant) alarm clocks in the morning.

I’ll keep this short. I’m an agnostic, vegetarian, anarcho-socialist with a mild (and undiagnosed) case of agoraphobia. I tend to avoid mentioning this combination of beliefs and traits until I’ve already convinced you of my other charms. If you’re bothered by any of that, stay away from the jam esc section and the recipes and you should be fine, as I don’t push much of that on anyone unless we’re already pretty close friends and I use it to rib you about your idologies, with full expectation that you’ll rib me about mine as well…

You can find out more about me by clicking around a bit and making some inferences, and if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to drop me a line.

Thanks for visiting!

Oh! and here’s me with a moustache, which I’ve grown for Movember the past few years and sometimes keep for many months, though I’m currently bare-lipped and mostly go without.