About Roller

⚠️ Warning: Prone to making things that are more personal than strictly necessary. Proceed accordingly.

I grew up in motion.

By the time I was sixteen, I’d lived on four different continents, which is a great way to learn how to adapt quickly, read a room, and never trust that a couch is going to be yours for very long. You learn how to belong just enough — and how to leave without making it awkward (or at least not more awkward than necessary).

Some places leave marks whether you ask them to or not. Africa taught me scale and stillness, and I’m fairly certain the soul of the earth lives there. Watching the sun set over the Serengeti has a way of rearranging your priorities permanently. South Korea gave me freedom, intensity, and friendships that burned bright and fast — the kind that feel eternal even when you know better. I’ve been chasing that level of connection ever since, occasionally successfully, often enthusiastically.

Coming to the United States as a teenager didn’t feel like settling down — it felt like being dropped into a very loud group project run by people who had never left the room. The cliques were sharper, the divisions louder, and I was not prepared for how normalized ignorance and racism were. I don’t think I ever fully stopped feeling like an outsider after that, but I did become extremely good at people-watching.

In my early adulthood, I tried on a lot of lives. I rebelled against expectations, authority, and anything that tried to define me too tightly. If I was told not to do something, I absolutely did it — often with impressive commitment. Ironically, the one place authority never bothered me was the Army. I loved the clarity, the structure (Helloooo undiagnosed ADHD), and the earned respect. Turns out I don’t hate being told what to do — I just hate being told who to be.

There were years where I lost my footing. I struggled with addiction for a period of my life and eventually had to accept that I was not, in fact, the exception to consequences. It was humbling, necessary, and extremely effective at recalibrating my sense of invincibility.

The years after that were loud by design. I ran an event design company while alongside a world of underground raves and music festivals, all powered by bass, logistics, and late nights. In the middle of that intensity, I fell deeply in love with the most beautiful man and built a most incredible relationship with my son — the clearest, truest thing to come out of the noise.

These days I love building chosen communities, hosting dinners, pulling people together, and seeing what happens during long, strange nights full of conversation, laughter, and connection. Making things is an extension of that — it’s how I turn curiosity and affection into something tangible (sometimes predictable, sometimes absolutely not).

Custom work brings me an absurd amount of joy. Watching someone light up over a sticker of their dog mashed up with an obscure fandom reference no one else recognizes is genuinely one of my favorite things in the world. That moment of being seen — that’s the whole point.

I’ve spent my life between places, between cultures, and between rules. Making things — especially strange, personal, joyful ones — is how I make sense of it all.