My Finnish-American father and Mexican-American mother met in high school in Madrid, Spain. I was born in Seattle, WA in 1980 but spent my formative years in the small logging town of Granite Falls, WA. So while my friends were eating sloppy joes and pizza, my Mexi-Finn parents Mike and Rose Oittinen served up paella, tamales, and sweet pülla breads. 

Although my entire family was fluent in Spanish, neither my brother nor I were taught the language - probably because everyone else was always talking about us. It wasn’t until my second year of high school Spanish class that I learned my grandmother’s pet names for me, ‘mi feito’ and ‘cabezón’ actually meant ‘my little ugly boy’ and ‘big head.’

After graduating with the dubious superlative ‘Most LIkely to be Read About in a Newspaper,’ I was accepted to The University of Washington, where I quickly realized that there were too many morning classes to be an English Major and that my 7th grade Geography Bee Championship held no clout with the Geography Department. On the advice of a cute co-ed, I decided to take a Foundation Arts course, where I proceeded to blow minds. Four years and many groundbreaking ‘Art Projects’ later, I graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Sculpture.

During the summer prior to graduation, wanderlust struck and so, armed with a list of family friends I should visit, I embarked for Europe. In my first two months there I managed to rack up a $300 phone bill in a bathroom at a four-star motel in Brussels, nearly lose my life on a roller-coaster in Bilbao, catch a passport thief in Morocco, and be excommunicated from an island in Greece (The island of Paros. Look it up).

Then I was out of money. 

I returned to The States with a global perspective, and upon graduation I vowed to move as far away as I possibly could.  I made it to Chicago. There, I spent a year learning to hibernate and drink before deciding to move to the less climate-challenged city of San Francisco for graduate school. Upon receiving my MFA in New Genres from the San Francisco Art Institute, I took another tour of Europe, participated in an Artist Residency in the Netherlands, and explored my Finnish heritage. Then it was time to return to The City by the Bay.

I’ve lived in San Francisco now for five years, and its beauty never ceases to amaze me. Nor do the strange, unexplainable, and incomprehensible things I see here every day! Where else on Earth can you turn your head one way and see the Golden Gate Bridge glistening in a late summer sunset, but look the other way to see an incredibly insane person in a suit made from living rats singing Megadeth falsetto into an empty suitcase? Nowhere...and I've been places.

When I’m not on the clock, I have a few hobbies that I hope will someday take the place of my day job. For the past seven years I’ve been performing stand-up comedy, although so far my greatest success is that I sold a joke for $10 to a comedian who later appeared on VH-1’s ‘Best Week Ever’! I also continue to make art, and I participate in gallery shows frequently.  My other interests include being a pop culture know-it-all, getting things for free, and drinking girly cocktails.

CMOBIO