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In 1975 after graduating from high school I went on a cross-country trip with my best friend. Along the way we stopped to visit his relatives in Arkansas. I was fascinated by a collection of 4 very primitive but artful bottles that had been covered with buttons, service medals and other personal trinkets by a woman who made them for each of her children; a unique and personal portrait created from the bits and pieces of someone’s life. Years later I learned from a folk art dealer that what she had created were pique-assiette style “memory pieces”. At the time I was a young art student with the goal of becoming a commercial Illustrator but I never forgot their power.

The focus of my art changed dramatically with the discovery of folk art animals. It became the catalyst for self-discovery about my own Latin and Native American heritage. The expressiveness and raw emotion created from fanciful creatures carved in wood and painted in saturated colors and wild patterns just knocked me out. That day I bought my first modest piece (an orange tiger) and started down the road to leaving the commercial art field.

My goal as an artist has always been the desire to create visual stories. When people view my pique-assiette influenced mosaics a personal but shared experience comes from the many stories to be found among the wildly varying objects, textures and colors. My mosaics are designed with a distinctively graphic point of view to achieve an architectural statement with humor, lasting beauty and permanence. Their complexity and density can be a dramatic counterpoint to modern interiors or an exuberant expression of life to enchant any primary or vacation home. Seeing Los Angeles’s own marvelous Watt’s Towers cemented my desire to merge decoration and architecture into my personal métier.

I was born in East Los Angeles California and grew up in the San Gabriel Valley. After graduating from Arroyo High School in 1975 I attended Pasadena City College for two years before being accepted to The Art Center College of Design. I graduated with a B.A. in illustration in 1982. I entered the advertising industry focusing on the entertainment industry. I created Byrd/Beserra Studios in 1985 with my partner the celebrated poster designer and Illustrator David Edward Byrd (david-edward-byrd.com).