I love making art. I love creating things that have never existed before, seeing them come alive in my hands. In 2020, I made a giant leap – I quit my job to go to art school. The world was in chaos - simultane-ously reckoning with centuries of systemic racial brutality and a global pandemic - life felt increas-ingly precious and short. The best thing I could do, I realized, was listen to the part of me that was yearning to create art.

In my first day of class, Professor Courtney Dicmas told us that to illustrate means to illuminate it was as if a mythical and proverbial lightbulb had gone off - I wanted to illustrate. I feel very clear about this calling. But my path here has been meandering, even tumultuous at times; I have pursued understanding how our world hurts and how we can heal, taking a winding path, studying societal problems of race and racial construction at Macalester College, studying interpersonal and community problems and paths to healing at the Social Work and Trauma-Informed Care at UW-Milwaukee, and most recently attuning to my creative self by returning to school to pursue art and storytelling. But because of these experiences, various careers, and several degrees under my belt, I can feel the palpable difference this time; I am centered and energized.