Growing Up In South Walton And Coming Back To Build Something
I grew up in South Walton. The beach. The dunes. The quiet stretch of 30A where the air smells like salt and pine and everything moves a little slower. It is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been, and I have been to a lot of places since I left. But when I was seventeen, I could not stay. There was not enough here. Not enough opportunity, not enough of the kind of creative life I was hungry for. So I left.
This is the story of leaving, of what I found, and of why I came back.
Leaving At Seventeen
I do not want to romanticize this part. I did not leave South Walton on some grand artistic mission. I left because I felt stuck. There was no clear path to doing the kind of work I wanted to do — creative work, technology work, something that combined both. The Emerald Coast was beautiful, but beauty alone does not build a career. I needed to go where the opportunities were, so I went.
I ended up in Los Angeles, and my first real job in the creative world was as an intern at Echo Park, a music venue. That internship became everything. I started doing lighting and stage design. I went on tour with bands, handling lighting, stage design, and tour managing. I was on the road constantly, living in vans and green rooms and whatever cheap housing the circuit offered.
It was on those tours that I taught myself to code. Between shows, in coffee shops in whatever city we were passing through, I would sit with a laptop and learn. I did not have a formal education in programming. I had time between soundcheck and doors, and I had curiosity. That combination turned out to be enough.
The name I go by — 10PRINT — comes from a Commodore 64 program that generates a random maze pattern with a single line of code. It is one of the earliest examples of generative art. A simple instruction that produces something complex and unpredictable. That idea — that a small set of rules can create something beautiful and surprising — has guided everything I have done since.
Building A Career In Immersive Design
After the touring years, I moved into interactive design. I worked at a studio that built experiences for museums and theme parks. I learned how to think about audience engagement at scale — how to design spaces where thousands of people feel something personal even though they are sharing the experience with strangers.
From there, I became a creative director, and the work took me to Montreal and Tokyo. I directed spectaculars for Disney, Universal, and Dollywood — large-scale productions that combine technology, narrative, and live performance into something that did not exist five minutes earlier. These were not permanent installations. They were events. Moments in time. That impermanence was part of what made them powerful, and it is part of what drew me to the pop-up format later.
Through all of this, I kept circling back to one idea: interactive art. Not art that people watch. Art that people are inside of. Art that responds to the viewer, that changes based on who is in the room. I participated in Digital Graffiti at Alys Beach three times. In 2019, I built interactive swing sets — installations where people generated art through their own movement. That project crystallized something for me. The audience is not separate from the work. The audience is the work.
That conviction is the seed of The Table 30A.
Coming Home
I did not plan to come back to South Walton. The career trajectory I was on pointed toward bigger cities, bigger budgets, bigger spectaculars. But something pulled me back.
Part of it was personal. This is where I grew up. The landscape is in my bones. The light on the Gulf, the way the dunes look at dusk, the sound of the water — those things shaped me before I had language for it. Returning felt like completing a circle.
But part of it was professional, and this is the part I want to be honest about. When I look at the Emerald Coast now, I see what I call the wild west for digital art. This area has incredible natural beauty, a growing community of people who care about culture and experience, and almost no presence of the kind of immersive, technology-driven art that major cities take for granted. There is a gap here. A massive one. And I wanted to fill it.
I did not come back to retire on the beach. I came back to build something that did not exist here yet. Something that could show people on 30A — and people visiting 30A — what is possible when you combine fine dining, original storytelling, and interactive digital art in a single evening.
What The Table 30A Is
The Table 30A is an immersive, multi-course pop-up dining experience. Five curated courses, each paired with a chapter of an original story. Interactive projection tracks hands, glasses, and plates on a communal table, generating abstract, colorful visuals that respond to guests in real time. Menus and themes change per event. The food draws from international dishes with strong story elements.
I run it as a two-person operation. I handle the show — the story, the projection, the technology, the design of the evening. Jose Castro handles the food. Jose is a local private chef from Venezuela who trained at Le Cordon Bleu in Spain and ran a bakery in Santiago. His culinary range and his understanding of how food tells a story make him the perfect partner for this.
Pop-up events sell individual tickets. Private events accommodate up to twelve guests at outdoor partner spaces along 30A. Every event is different because the menus and stories change. The projection is generative and interactive, which means it responds to the specific people in the room on that specific night. No two evenings are the same.
I have written about the format in more detail in What Is The Table 30A, but the short version is this: it is the culmination of everything I learned in fifteen-plus years of designing immersive experiences, applied to the most human format I could think of — dinner.
What Has Changed On 30A
When I left South Walton at seventeen, the area was quieter. Smaller. The communities along 30A were there, but the cultural infrastructure was thinner. There were not as many restaurants, galleries, or events. The audience for something like The Table 30A probably did not exist yet.
Now it does. The growth along 30A over the past two decades has brought an audience that is curious, engaged, and hungry for experiences that go beyond the ordinary. People visit 30A for the beauty, but they stay for the culture. And the culture is expanding.
I see that expansion as an invitation. An invitation to bring the kind of work that I have spent my career building — immersive, interactive, narrative-driven — to a place that is ready for it. The Emerald Coast does not need to import its art from Miami or New York. It can grow its own.
What Still Needs To Change
I would be dishonest if I said everything was perfect. The gap that made me leave at seventeen has narrowed, but it has not closed. There are still young people growing up along 30A who feel the same way I did — that there is not enough opportunity here for creative, technology-driven work. That the path to a career in immersive design or interactive art requires leaving.
I want The Table 30A to be a small piece of changing that. Not because a pop-up dinner series is going to single-handedly transform the creative economy of the Emerald Coast. But because visible proof matters. When someone growing up here sees that you can build an immersive dining experience that combines fine dining, original storytelling, and interactive digital art — and do it on 30A, not in Los Angeles or Tokyo — that changes the map of what feels possible.
I am not naive about this. The infrastructure for supporting a thriving digital art scene on the Emerald Coast is still developing. But the potential is enormous. This is a place where people come to feel something. The natural environment already does that. The question is whether we can build a creative environment that matches it.
The Table 30A As A Contribution
I think of The Table 30A as my contribution to the community I grew up in. Not a business plan. Not a brand. A contribution.
Everything I learned — from the Echo Park internship to the touring years to the museum installations to directing spectaculars in Montreal and Tokyo — all of it funnels into a single communal table at outdoor spaces along 30A. A table where twelve people sit down, eat five courses, hear a story, and watch the light respond to their presence. Where the technology disappears and the emotion stays.
I came back because I believe this place deserves more than what it had when I left. And I believe the kind of work I do — immersive, interactive, rooted in storytelling — belongs here as much as it belongs anywhere.
If you want to know more about how I ended up here, I have written about pieces of the journey in From Echo Park Intern To Immersive Dining Creator and The Commodore 64 Program That Gave Me My Name. And if you want to see what all of this looks like in practice, What To Expect At A Table 30A Pop Up Event is a good place to start.
South Walton gave me a starting point. I left to find the tools. I came back to build something with them.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why did you leave South Walton?
I left at seventeen because there was not enough creative opportunity at the time. I was hungry for a career that combined technology and art, and the path to that career ran through cities like Los Angeles, Montreal, and Tokyo. I needed to go where the work was.
What brought you back to 30A?
A combination of personal connection — this is where I grew up and the landscape shaped who I am — and professional vision. I see the Emerald Coast as a wild west for digital art, a place with enormous potential for immersive, technology-driven experiences that has not yet been fully explored.
What is your background in immersive design?
I started as an intern at Echo Park, a music venue in Los Angeles, and went on tour with bands doing lighting, stage design, and tour managing. I taught myself to code on the road. I became an interactive designer at a studio for museums and theme parks, then a creative director on spectaculars for Disney, Universal, and Dollywood in Montreal and Tokyo. I have participated in Digital Graffiti at Alys Beach three times.
How does The Table 30A contribute to the 30A community?
The Table 30A brings immersive, technology-driven art to a region that has not had much of it. It is visible proof that this kind of creative work can happen on the Emerald Coast, not just in major cities. My hope is that it helps expand what feels possible for creative people growing up in the area.
Can I attend a Table 30A event as a visitor to the area?
Yes. Pop-up events sell individual tickets and are open to anyone. Private events can also be arranged for groups of up to twelve guests at outdoor spaces along 30A.
