Why don’t we start at a good point: the beginning?

I grew up in a small California suburb. It’s one of those classic suburban neighborhoods. I more or less grew up out there just trying to make what I could out of it. It’s just filled with strip malls and condos. I went to high school out there and hung out with a bunch of people who skated and were into punk rock and that whole small subculture scene. I got into art early on—in high school I guess. From there, I just started exploring.

Is that where you noticed your artistic talent?

I’ve drawn and painted all my life. It just did the whole progression from painting and drawing as a five-year-old and then on to high school.

So the progression was easy?

I think it was just really natural. A lot of the stuff I was making early on were things like mix tape cassette covers, stickers, and 
t-shirts that we would iron on or screen print. It was always, with my art, a sort of “what can I turn this into?” thing, like how can my art live out in the world?

Is that how National Forest formed?

National Forrest is Justin Krietemeyer and myself. We’re the owners, creative directors, and art directors. We started the company in 2003 when we graduated from Art Center in Pasadena. At the time we graduated, we really liked design and type and wanted to drop our illustrations into some sort of context. It was literally two months before graduation, and we were both sort of like: “What do we do now?” We could either go and work at a skate company or a music company or we could start our own thing and try to find work within those industries. At the time, Justin had a loft that we were already working in because we were collaborating on projects in school. When we finished school, we just kept collaborating on stuff. We just decided to start a company. Now, we have interns and bookkeepers. It’s slowly growing, and it’s growing at a pace we’re excited with.