Marcus grew up in a developing suburban area in Dallas, Texas and as a result many houses were being constructed which provided him with the opportunity to extensively work with construction materials such as wood, metal, foam, and sand. However, he didn’t really start progressing in ceramics until high school at Jesuit College Preparatory School of Dallas, where he received formal instruction and was able to develop his skills more rapidly. It was there that he was first introduced to clay and began working with clay. He spent a lot of time outside of class in the studio and upon graduation received an award in ceramic arts.

After high school, he went to the University of Oklahoma (OU) on full scholarship where he began study as a biologist, however, he also took classes in ceramics and after a year and a half, he dropped out of OU and moved back to Dallas where he went to Brookhaven Community College (BCC). At BCC, he continued to work in clay and decided to quit studying biology altogether. After one semester at BCC, he transferred to the University of North Texas (UNT) where he began pursuing degrees in fine arts.

At UNT, he really developed as an artist of all mediums and in the end he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in Ceramics and a BFA in Sculpture. It was at UNT that he studied sculpture (predominantly metals such as bronze and steel) with Harlan Butt, Richard Davis, and Don Schol and ceramics with Jerry Austin and Elmore Taylor. In specific, he also had the opportunity to meet and work with artist such as Don Reitz and Rick Berman, both of which really pushed his art forward, especially with Don Reitz where he started making large scale pieces and began toying with fire methods such as raku, salku, wood- and salt-firings. During this period, he also did an apprenticeship with Jim Dale at Salado Pottery, where he became functionally proficient in ceramics. While still drawing and painting, he started his own ceramic company (Infinite Vision... the site you are now at) and started making a living by selling his art (mainly functional ceramic pieces) which lasted for about 2 years.

After receiving his BFAs, he began work on a masters program in ceramics at UNT, but as his business continued to do well, he left the program after one year. After some time working as a professional artist, he realized that he had a strong interest in understanding and working with materials and in fact during his time at UNT, he had become interested in a from-scratch approach where he bought the raw base materials such as kaolin, feldspar, silica, etc… and began making his own clays, slips, stains, and glazes. This is also where he really became interested in the process and science behind working with materials (a little foreshadowing here).

After this realization, he decided to return to school to study chemical engineering and was admitted to Colorado School of Mines (CSM). At CSM, he took an introductory class in the field of metallurgical and materials engineering which he found very interesting as it addressed the scientific and technical issues associated with the "alchemy" he had learned previously while studying art. As a result, he switched his major to metallurgical and materials engineering as it became clear that he had a lot of practical experience working with materials such as metals and ceramics. While studying metallurgical and materials engineering, he continued to work in ceramic arts and he did this at Red Rocks Community College (RRCC) with ceramic artist, James Robertson.

After receiving a Bachelor of Science (BS) in Metallurgical and Materials Engineering from CSM, he attended Northwestern University (NU) where he studied Materials Science and Engineering in the Dunand Group. During his time at NU, he had the opportunity to establish a studio in his house with a throwing wheel and a kiln and of course all of the chemicals needed to make his own glazes, stains, slips, etc… He regularly attended a figure drawing class at Noyes Cultural Arts Center where he continued to develop his interpretation of the figure. He also taught minicourses on ceramics at NU.

During his PhD research, which was focused primarily on strain measurements and imaging of metal matrix composites using high-energy X-rays at the Advanced Photon Source of Argonne National Laboratory, he had the opportunity to work with the conservation science department at the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) on ancient Chinese bronzes. After receiving a PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from NU, he received a 1-year Mellon fellowship with AIC, where his research expanded to both ancient and modern bronzes.

Currently, he is completing a 2-year Alexander von Humboldt fellow in the Institute of Materials at Ruhr University in Bochum, Deutschland. After this fellowship, he will be applying for faculty positions in materials science and engineering. Although this is still developing, he plans to continue creating art, teaching and performing research at the university level.