My biggest artistic ambition in life is to redefine the film industry. Ever since I was a young girl, I knew that I wanted to become a movie director -I always had a preference for being behind the camera on the technical side of things. When I got older, however, and learned more about the film industry as a whole, I never saw any influential women in the field. There were a few women here and there, of course, however, these girls were so overshadowed by the males around them, that it was hard to focus on these women and what they were able to create. In order to make this dream a reality for myself, I need to go to school and allow myself to absorb as much as I possibly can about film and the world that embodies it. With the right amount of aid, I know that I will make it happen. I knew from a young age that I would never allow myself to be a failure - I have to be successful in my own life in order to truly be fulfilled. This motivates me to be the strongest and best version of myself, and I know that this passion will allow me to pave a new road for women who want to pursue this lifestyle, much like I always have. I want women to see a girl like me making it big in a male-dominated industry and making films that challenge that rhetoric. I want these women to be inspired to try something that they always avoided because they were under the assumption that it was a "man's" job.

When I was a young teenager, I was diagnosed with Paranoid Schizophrenia. In the time leading up to my proper diagnosis, I refused to believe that there was anything wrong with me -I couldn't imagine living my life with a disability that would strip me of my ability to be independent one day- however, I took the baby steps needed to come to terms with my situation and use it to my advantage in my life and my passions. Lucky for me, I am an artist pursuing film. The good thing about art people is that they are driven by their "crazy" heads and make the best art at the heights of their misery, so I figured it was the perfect fit for me with this newfound mental disorder. Art can be used in so many ways, one of the major ways being to express profound and confounding topics, mental disorders often being on that pedestal. Art is used to intrigue and to teach others about stuff they couldn't understand otherwise, art is a way to understand the soul. In the confusing mess that is my brain, I want to be able to use my art form to teach others about Schizophrenia to stop the stigma around it. I didn't always want to be an artist. For the longest time, I wanted to pursue the field of Psychology, which I now find funnily ironic. I wanted to become a neuroscientist with a major in mental health studies to learn about why the brain experiences chemical deficiencies in disorders like depression -which I had severely before my schizophrenia diagnosis. I never thought that my greatest interest would become my own reality. As a result, however, I learned very quickly that with this mental disability, I had no place in a field that required such a vast expanse of intelligence and stability -two things I do not have in the slightest. I quickly turned to photography and painting as an outlet, which eventually led to my interest in film. I absolutely adore movies, I can watch them all that long. Movies, in my experience, are the only thing that keeps my paranoia episodes at bay for long amounts of time. Film is essentially my therapy. There is something so magical about being able to enter a different world and basically turn off my own broken head to be somewhere else, caring about people who don't even exist, without having to worry about my own problems. When watching movies that highlight mental health disorders and disabilities, I couldn't help but notice that the way directors portrayed mental health was often inaccurate, and I was inspired to want to enter the world of Film to set the record straight. I hope one day to become successful and independent, despite my inability to really do so because I am certifiably insane on a professional level, however, I know that I will be able to use this disorder to better both myself and my life.

When I was 14, I attempted to kill myself. I had been shoved into such a dark corner of my life, that saw no other way out than to end everything because of the impact of others around me. Words were damaging, I was physically bullied for how much I weighed, I felt like I had nobody -all that consistent taunting for absolutely nothing. It was all for nothing because I took every word and every punch as a challenge to be better for myself and for those that cared, even if it seemed like there was no one for a long time. It took a long time to get to that mindset, however. I never saw a reason to keep going in this world. I was told that I had no talents, that I wasn't attractive, that I was fat. I was given every reason to die from my peers, and they almost got exactly what they wanted. I felt as if my life had so little value and that I was so incredibly ugly and unlovable, all because of the opinions of people that paid no mind to me after they went home every evening. The unlovable feeling still lingers from time to time, no matter how hard I try to convince myself otherwise, yet I know one day I will be much stronger. Self-love is a constant battle, and it's really hard to love yourself when those around you try to tell you that there is nothing to be loved. Self-love, however, is empowering. Self-love is strength, it is power. And once you learn to see that loving yourself is the strongest thing you can do for yourself, it becomes a lot easier to see the face you look at in the mirror every day and love it, down to every small blemish, detail, and imperfection.

I became incredibly interested in woodworking completely by accident. I had moved to a new school when I was in the 10th grade and had become so dejected by how much I hated the school. After some motivation from my counselors and parents, I begrudgingly decided to partake in the theatre program. Little did I know that this minor jump into theatre would lead me to become the headmaster carpenter of the technical theatre department, competing in multiple Texas State competitions and discovering a love for something I never thought I could enjoy. My interest in woodworking began when I was asked to head a new project for our theatre department -design and build an entire set for a Shakespearean play. At the time I was scared, I had little understanding of woodworking, the saws, sanders, grinders, and drills all scared me greatly in the beginning. I was eventually forced to learn my favorite instrument, however. The jigsaw. The jigsaw is the very spark that threw me into my love for woodworking. As intimidating as it was at first, after getting the hang of it, and getting really good at it, I began to use it as much as I possibly could. It inspired all of my sets to lack the standard sharp-edged blocks that were common in set design. The power that the jig gave me, lead me to create much more interesting sets -sets with curves, and steps, and funky door designs. My main priority in woodworking comes with set design. I absolutely love being able to build sets as I please for theatre and set design. Being able to use my understanding of carpentry and my newfound expertise in wood-crafting, I feel as if the possibilities to create are endless. After countless hours of playing around, learning new things, I had finally found my niche -the love of carpentry and building with wood. Set design is all about woodworking. In set design, one has to use combinations of plywood, standard studding, foam, foam plates, stringers, and all other types of wood under the sun. Being able to work with these different elements is important when it comes to woodworking because every good craftsman must know how to use every element in their craft. Being able to put them together, and to make them safe for people to dance, sing, and jump around on is crucial to the craft. As a result, it takes hours upon hours of work, in order to ensure you are making the best of your work for everyone. My main challenges come from motivation. After leaving school, I have had a much harder time finding the ability to practice this craft outside of smaller settings. I used to go to community theatres, and work with teams of other technicians to build sets, however, I can no longer do that as a result of covid. Despite my best efforts and making wood crafts, I have a tendency to lose interest when I don't have the apt space to do so. Despite this, I always do what I can to keep myself busy in learning what to do with my love of wood-crafting, learning all the ways to advance my abilities into being able to better my skills, and work with other experts of the craft to teach me how to be as good of a woodsman as I can possibly be.

I have had an overwhelming passion for film and all things movies since I was a kid. Seeing LGBT+ content within these films, however, was always underwhelming. I never saw myself in movies, never saw my people portrayed unless it was derogatory or in a mocking sense. Because of this narrative, I was inspired to want to create a world of film in which LGBT+ people are normalized on the big screen. I have always used art as a way to express myself, making all kinds of short films scraping along with the topics of LGBT+ struggles and personalities. My goal is to one day make movies, plays, musicals, and all things visual art focusing on the existence of LGBT+ people all over the world. I want to get detailed, get up close, and personal with topics people don't like to discuss. I want to challenge the way we see gay people in this world and normalize a new world in which we no longer judge people for who they are. The main part of the growth in society is by implementing it into the things we see every single day. Movies -films, plays, musicals -these are the forms of art in which we are challenged with new ideas and new arguments that you are left to think about whether you like it or not, and I want to be a part of that. I want to take my lifestyle and make people think about it, question it, normalize it. I want to take my lifestyle and showcase just how hard, sad, happy, and crazy being a gay person is. To make people look closely, to make them see just how difficult it is to be LGBT+ even today. Film is an outlet in which we absolutely showcase the "taboo" -the scary, the unknown, the controversial, and that is why I want, so badly, to participate in that narrative as well. Film production and the art that goes within is a beautiful thing, and I can only hope that one day I can be a part of that beauty.

Ever since I was a little girl, I have always wanted to become an influential and successful movie director. After that revelation in my youth, I did everything I could with my mom's old, dingy camera that didn't film well to make some of my first "movies", and have been able to upgrade my setup as I have gotten more familiar with the art form. When it comes to film, however, there is so much to learn in the long run -a lot of which comes at a great cost. In order to be the best I can be at my job, I want to learn every possible in and out of film and all things cinematography. I want to learn audio and visual engineering alongside advanced camera operation and want to be able to learn as much as possible -taking every class I can find, reaching out to every expert, snagging every internship I can. I am planning on taking these classes as well as going to a university that specializes in Film in order to heighten my strengths in the field. My overall hope with this money is that I can excel and be the best and brightest at what I do. I love the direction I am heading and I want to be good at it, too. I know that in order to do that I must have the reasonable funds in order to grow professionally and be able to reach my overall goal in life: the ability to change the world with art.

I come from the United States, which has a reputation of not respecting art or deeming it a necessary good. All my life I wanted to become an artist, but was always discouraged by everyone around me. I was told it wasn’t essential and that it wouldn’t make me any money, but I could never understand why that was so important. Why did I have to choose something that gave me only monetary gain over something that truly made me happy and that I knew I could thrive in? Things took a turn when I entered high school and took every art class under the sun. From Art History to painting 101 to film, I absorbed everything I could learn about art -I became so obsessed with art and my love for the subject only deepened. I knew at an absolute that I wanted to go into art -specifically film. I learned as much as I could about film in as little time as possible, every in and out about it. One thing I had learned overtime was that film had developed in France, as well as various other art forms I loved. I then had this crazy thought that I had never considered in my life: what if I move to Europe? I took the time to do my research and decided that France was the place for me. France is rich in art, and values the subject as well, which is right up my alley. I am now working harder and harder every single day to be able to make this dream come true. I am currently enrolled in a French academy, and my schooling begins this upcoming fall -I could not be more excited then I am right now. I know that France has so much culture to offer, and I can’t wait to learn all about it, and what better way to do that then to simply thrust yourself into the culture and learn everything you can at once? I knew I was making the right decision from the start when I realized I have no doubts about this. I love exploration, I need it to thrive as an individual. I need to absorb new information, meet new people at any time I possibly can. I can expand my mind and my interests to such greater heights when I am able to freely learn and experience all art and culture that the world has to offer me. I cannot wait to go to Europe and learn how to be a better and brighter person in order to be able to thrive in life.

I have been living on the frontlines of retail work for the past year in the midst of this pandemic without a single break, and I have learned more in one year from that alone than anything else in my life has ever taught me. I decided to get a job right at the start of the pandemic back in March because I wanted to take the opportunity to work while I was out of school, and got thrust into a lifestyle I could've never prepared for - 60-hour long weeks of working as well as working up to 12-hour days with no breaks to spare. With the stress of the pandemic, I could understand the hostility of those I had to work with when I had begun my job as a customer service representative, however I could not anticipate the absolute crudeness of the people I had to deal with every single day. The stress could be felt by every single person I met and the only way they seemed to handle that stress was by yelling at me about things I didn't have control over. Every single day I felt like quitting, I remember sleeping in my car during the summer because I would leave work at 11:00PM and be right back at work at 5:00AM the next morning, I would cry between customers who were especially personal with their rudeness, and overall felt like my world was crashing down. As things have simmered down, however, I have learned to take a step back and think about my life and how hard I've worked. I thought about all of the good that came out of this -namely my intense work ethic. I now know that I absolutely can work under any sort of circumstance no problem, I can be working 7 days a week for months at a time, and still be motivated to do so, because that was often what my schedule looked like. I felt like everybody was out to get me, every single person was so incredibly rude, and I learned very quickly how the real world truly is. I used to be very people friendly, wanting to help in any way I can. I am still like that, however I have become much more reserved as I have hardened my outer shell and learned about the worst of people and how their words can effect you personally. If all things, I can handle any type of person without any problems, all thanks to the stress and chaos of this pandemic. While this pandemic has been so cruel, at the very least, it did teach me how to have a good sense of work ethic, and taught me so much about the real world all at once. I now know my limits and how to work towards building my strength to work harder every single day.

Self-love is a constant battle, and it is one that I myself lose often. Ever since I was young, I had a really hard time finding the ability to love myself, because I knew that I was different from everyone else. I had interests that were considered "manly" -like working out and working on cars. I always thought it was odd that these type of interests were marginalized into gendered categories, but I never thought too much on it. It was, however, very hard to continue what I love, because I got ridiculed a lot for it. My self-love comes to me when I am doing what I love most -carpentry. I absolutely love building things and the process that goes into it overall. The accomplishments that I feel when I am able to create massive pieces of art for others to see and utilize, that is when I feel most satisfied. If I can't learn to love how I look, at the very least I can learn how to love my passions and my talent for those passions -and set-building is my way of finding love within myself. When I am in my elements, building big set pieces for my community theatre shows and running an entire team of techies to help me, it brings me more love and joy then I could ever describe -that is what is most important to me when it comes to self love.

I have a tough time dealing with the concept that this world works in ways that don't make any sense; in which people are cruel and horrendous, in which we can see ways to respect others and the Earth, yet choose not to. I want to create films and videos that will leave people so aghast and shocked that they will be so taken away from reality -if only for a small amount of time, perhaps even be inspired by them. I don't want to create for the sake of just creation -art is a lot more than what we see on the surface, much like humanity. I want to create something that makes people look at the world in a different lens, that inspires others to be kinder to one another, and especially themselves in the long run. I want to create topics that make people uncomfortable, but need to be addressed so desperately. I want people to be forced to see the truth about the world and be inspired to start the changes necessary to better our elements overall. The world will never be able to change so long as we proceed to simply block out what we don't like to see, I would like to change that narrative. Art is meant to be seen from an outside perspective as a means of connection to the art and the artist, but in a way that is still seen as an individual perspective -I want to find the perfect way to blend my thoughts about the world into everyone I meet, and hope they look at the world differently as well. I have so much anger in me about everything -politics, the way we treat our Earth, the way we treat other humans. If I can even showcase just an ounce of that anger and project it in a way that provokes thought, then I know that I did something right with myself. Life is about growth, about forming new thoughts as you learn and find new interests -people are always seeking out new means of interest. I would like to make the difference in as many ways -both big and small- as I possibly can.