About Me
The search for origins is probably the single greatest curiosity in my life, and the one with the longest through line. I can trace this preoccupation to my early childhood when at age five I began my apostasy from Christianity. This might seem like a young age to be pursuing answers to such big questions as eternity, but I just wasn't satisfied with the set up being offered by my mother and the Lutherans. So, I stayed up at night creating my own interpretation, which has since been modified by experience and deeper and more philosophical scrutiny.
But it's not just the big questions I'm curious about. The "why" of things has always been a particular fascination for me, and its pursuit has led me into some of my life's greatest and most fulfilling journeys. One of life's revelations has been that the answer isn't always the goal. It's the journey that matters, and the wisdom we glean along the way.
I was born and raised in a remote Chicago suburb to a middle class family and
schooled in the Chicago public school system. In retrospect I was always going to live a life in art. My parents were both involved in music, couples' dancing and live theater as teenagers and much of my early youth was spent in the (older) company of Dixieland jazz music and musical theater.
I later earned bachelor's degrees in music and literature from the University of Denver. I embarked on a music career after college for ten years with a popular Denver-area band before moving to New York City to begin working on writing. While investing myself in literature, wholesale, I started to pick up a diverse skillset in theatrical theater and event staging, working as an event rigger, scenic carpenter, lighting and audio hand in New York City and later internationally, touring with Harley Davidson Motorcycles during part of its 100 year anniversary world tour.
In 2005, I launched Gest Scenic Creations, a theatrical production company in Long Island City, NY, the same year I began my research into the history of Big Bang cosmology. Along the way I built sets and set pieces for Slava's Snowshow, Derek McLane and Michael Mayer (10 Million Miles), Eugene Lee (The Normal Heart), Bloomberg, NASCAR, Broadway musicals and television dating shows. I even rigged the largest ever (at the time) kabuki drop to reveal a Boeing 747 in a hangar at Newark International Airport in Newark, NJ.
I later closed my business and went to work for a Fortune 5000 company working with front office personnel in the fashion and beauty industry while continuing my research toward writing my first book on the life and career of the astronomer Milton Humason. I published my first article on the history of astronomy in in the January 2012 issue ofAstronomy
That began my career as a writer and since then I've published numerous books and articles in history, science, sports, fiction and nonfiction. As much as I love working on my own projects, I enjoy coaching and writing for other people as much or more. It's enormously fulfilling seeing the lights switch on when someone gets a new idea or concept, and I love collaborating with my clients on their book projects.
Personal Core Values
Curiosity
Whatever your artistic endeavor, having a general curiosity about the world we live in, both near and far, is essential for personal and artistic growth and inspiration. My own curiosity has made it possible for me to try out a great many artistic pathways and to meet incredibly interesting, wise and creative people.
Creativity
For me, creativity refers most of all to problem solving, a characteristic prone to much of the animal kingdom and to life in general. What separates humans from the rest of the Earth's flora and fauna is artistic problem solving, or creative thinking in the name of self-expression.
Collaboration
Collaboration is my one "replaced" value as an artist. As a musician in my post-collegiate years, collaboration was very much a part of my daily life. After I spent years of development as a research writer and historian I felt an almost desperate need for collaboration after months and years of careful, mostly private study. Now it makes up a large proportion of my life as an artist.
Mentorship
Of all my artistic values, mentorship is easily the most rewarding. I get as much joy and feeling of accomplishment working with others and "switching on the lights" as I do working on my own projects. And as with all teaching endeavors, there is much to learn through the act of mentoring others, which is itself rewarding.
Perseverance
My most hard-earned value is perseverance. As a younger creative I was enthralled by the parade of new ideas that seemed endlessly to pass through the space between my ears. Finishing an idea was another matter, and one I found much less thrilling. It took me years to figure out how to become selective, how to edit myself, and how to concentrate, finding the passion for my projects that helps me see them through to their conclusions.