“I developed diabetic retinopathy in 2009.  I guess it’s from my diabetes being out of control for so long.  I had lost my insurance in 2005.  Diabetes just set in from there.  I just slowly started losing sight.  Right now I guess it’s at a point where it’s not going anywhere.  It is just what it is and is gonna be for the rest of my life.

Before that I was an animator, cartoonist, working at Nickelodeon and working kid games.  I did a lot of computer animation.  I did a lot of visual stuff, so it’s like…What do I do now?  So now I’m more of an advisor and producer kind of situation.  I talk with artists and try to get them into knowing what they need to do to succeed in the art field and the digital art world.

I remember being at Nickelodeon for a year and the show ended.  It was like…Well what do I do now?  I gotta find a new job.  So I went over to EA and the opportunity presented itself.  I really never stopped doing the work I do.  In a sense, I just adapted to what happened to me.

My mother, my brothers and sisters won’t let me get to a point where I’m like ugggh I don’t want to do anything today ‘cause I can’t see.  I don’t feel like doing anything but they push me.  My oldest brother is legally blind.  He says to me all the time, ‘I’ll allow you one day to feel bad and after that you gotta get up and go and keep going.‘  So that’s our motto.

Some people treat me differently now, some don’t.  Some people just see me as Mark, and that’s just how Mark’s always been.  And then there’s some people like, ‘You know we don’t really want to have to deal with looking out for you ‘cause you can’t see.‘  There are people like that.  And there’s other people that are like, ‘He’s our friend.  He’s our brother.  We ain’t gonna treat him any different.‘