Michael, who hails from Missouri, began drawing at age four and holds a BFA in Illustration from Parsons School of Design. His preferred mediums are watercolor and watercolor brush pen, acrylic, gouache, pencil and marker, in styles including figurative abstraction, cartooning and portraiture. His work is focused upon form, line, and color, energy fields and the intersection between dreams, myths, and archetypes. Among Michael's sources of inspiration are "the tender beauty of the underside of a leaf, visions received in the state between sleep and wakefulness, skin, form and the effects of gravity, light and the conversations between colors."