When I first changed my name on social media over a decade ago, I had a multitude of reasons. My legal name is pronounced wrong constantly (it's going to be rough, man), but "Starfish" is easy. Changing it to "Starfish" also was due to a story about a boy and a starfish that I read. This story forever changed my point of view on how to go about changing the world. Ultimately, I let the moniker "Starfish" stick and used it regularly. As I started building my career as a professional artist and musician, I kept it. "Starfish" is a genuine part of who I am: someone with a deep caring and compassion for life.

I have a passion and talent for making a collage out of different disciplines by integrating the world of musical performance, theater, and the arts. This skill was forged alongside my academic studies in the humanities and social sciences. 

I started seriously polishing these abilities around 2011. It was my junior year of college. I was visiting my dad in his proud possession: a camper parked strategically behind my Granny Elsie's house in Lexington, VA. We had been talking for hours. As I soaked it all in, I quickly scrambled down notes about my dad's experiences and ideas on his myriad of opinions as he shared them.

A fascinating flow of connections to my theses in Literature and Sociology poured into my head. 

Maybe he already knew somehow that he had just shared some of the best wisdom I'd ever heard. Perhaps he didn't. Either way, it was off the cuff what he said next. "It doesn't matter how you write it," he chuckled as he spoke a beautiful phrase of wise perspective like a sage wizard off the cuff. "To me, it's going to be a song."