Salsa lessons in Costa Rica, traveling through Brazil and teaching Hip Hop while exploring business opportunities in Guangxi, China are a few things that can be found on the life resume of 25-year-old Michael Wogu.

His exploration of art has lead Wogu's young life in many directions his latest is China where he has gone to study culture and pursue artistic business endeavors.

Wogu's natural fixation with the arts began at a young age. Both dance and drawing came naturally to Wogu, he says.

"I started drawing the normal things like robots and cops and robbers, like most boys, in the third grade;" he said.

From there, the progression was natural. He joined a drawing club at his fifth grade elementary school in Palmdale. He began to explore graffiti style, "the street calligraphy, tagging," he called it.

"In seventh grade everyone had to have their back pack tagged on with the white paint markers," Wogu laughed. He credits this early practice with showing him that others really appreciated his work, it kept him going, Wogu believes.

Wogu's talent was apparent and continued to blossom throughout his high school career, but during his early years of college his creativity suffered. He didn't know why. He thought it may have been women. He thought it may have been money, working for his father's business. Either way he just didn't feel like doing it.

"I don't know why," said Wogu. "I just didn't feel like doing it."

It was then Wogu's friends played a very important role in his life.

Wogu attributes the resurgence of his work to two close friends Jesse Gilkey, a long time friend of Wogu's and member of the same church, and Sheldon Fahie. They told Wogu to keep moving forward with his work and they always let him know he should not waste his talent.

"Everyone believed that I could make a living drawing, dancing, or just basically being myself," Wogu said while smiling appreciatively.

Wogu took their words to heart. "They would give me serious lectures about wasting my talents," said Wogu. "They were patient, persistent and most importantly they hyped up their boy."

"Mike really is talented," said Gilkey. "He has a way of creating things that show you emotion without having to subtitle it or write anything at all."

Even now the two men, Gilkey and Wogu, are working together, focusing on their coined slogan, "the betterment."

"Jesse had an idea to mix our talents into collaboration ' God, love, and loss,'" said Wogu.

"God, Love and Loss" is a book of both art and poetry the two men envisioned. Gilkey, a composer of poetry and practitioner of spoken word, the art form of reciting poetic work on stage often times to music, would write poetry for the book. Wogu would then create the artistry to explain the piece.

"We had big plans to produce this and drop this for the betterment of many," said Wogu.

According to Wogu, the book would help others in their exploration of "the self" in the aspects of "religion, relationships and times of tribulation."

"I started to focus on drawing things that came from the soul, things that pulled questions and could create discussions from those partaking in the viewing of it," said Wogu in regard to themes behind his drawings in the book. The book is a combination of poetry provided by Gilkey and art work that interprets the poetry by Wogu. The book is still in rough draft form.

The book is still in early work stages but has been put on hold. Wogu has been perusing other interest as of late; these included the acquisition of his master's degree from La Sierra University in June 2007, and six months spent in Costa Rica learning Spanish and to Salsa dance.

Currently Wogu is in Guangxi, China, learning Mandarin and hoping to launch his line of upscale bags within the next year or so.

Wogu didn't want to prematurely give out too much information about his business endeavors but does say when things become "more concrete the world will know."

"It's going to be hot," Wogu says emphatically. "I'm currently working on an elaborate piece that we want to have as the lining for the inside of the high-end bag line."

He is ambitious and willing to go that extra 8,000 miles or so to achieve his dream. He understands the importance of gaining knowledge about the culture of those whom one does business with. He is mature, but also understands he still has some growing up to do.

"What do I want to be when I finish growing up?" Wogu asked himself. His eyes traced the ceiling for a moment before they settled, smiling slightly he said "well I want to be free."

The freedom to roam, he says. To be able to pick up and go and not worry about the price of the plane ticket or where he'll stay, that is freedom to Wogu. And it is his inspiration.