Mike Nelson has a degree in fine arts from the University of Florida but has been creating since childhood when his mom thought he was a genius because he won an art show painting Santa on burlap in first grade. The university setting at UF, which was also the quasi-birthplace of photoshop, opened his world to the assemblage and collage of Joseph Cornell. He has been pasting things together all his life to create worlds that he wished existed. After years of cutting and pasting things together he learned to work with digital images and continued to cut and paste in a new way. He lives his life under an assumed name, and adores Hayley Mills and Doris Day.