I am pursuing a career in art because my mother has always been my biggest inspiration. Art is an escape for me, a lifeline that keeps me going. My mother has always encouraged me to grasp onto that lifeline, to hold it close and never let go. I am passionate about my craft because of her, because of her belief in me. Growing up, I watched my mother create beauty out of nothing. She could take a blank canvas and turn it into something that spoke to people. Her dedication and passion for art made a lasting impression on me. She taught me that art is not just about creating something visually appealing, but about expressing emotions and telling stories. This lesson has stayed with me and has driven me to pursue a career in the arts. Art has always been a safe space for me, especially as a trans man. It is a way for me to express my identity and emotions without fear of judgment. Through my art, I can communicate my experiences and connect with others who might feel the same way. This connection is incredibly important to me, and it is one of the reasons I am so passionate about fine arts. At the University of Nevada Las Vegas, I plan to major in Arts. I believe that this will give me the skills and knowledge I need to grow as an artist. My high school GPA might not be impressive, but my dedication to my craft is unwavering. I have participated in community service projects like re-painting the historical “B Mountain” in Henderson and joining a student strike to support teachers. These experiences have taught me the value of community and the impact that art can have on bringing people together. Currently, I am working as a busser to support myself through college. This job has taught me the importance of hard work and perseverance. Despite the challenges, I continue to find time for my art. I recently applied and participated in the 2024 “Chalk It Down” competition. This experience was incredibly rewarding and reinforced my passion for art. In conclusion, I am pursuing a career in art because it is my lifeline, my way of expressing myself and connecting with others. My mother’s belief in me has been a constant source of motivation, and I am determined to make her proud. I am passionate about fine arts because it allows me to tell my story and make a difference in the world. With the support of the John Traxler Theatre Scholarship, I believe I can achieve my dreams and continue to grow as an artist.

I plan to inspire. I plan to inspire in the way that I am inspired by countless artists I have both watched and researched. I plan to leave an impact like aids artist Hugh Steers has impacted me and my artwork. I plan to make people feel. To see themselves within my artwork and feel the heart and soul I pour into my pieces. To make people cry, in the same way I have cried over the works of Steers. In the way he pours himself and his feelings, his struggles with mortality and his friends dying onto canvas. In the way he created, even while his life was being cut so short by aids. I plan to make people feel what I have felt. The pain, the suffering, the longing, the hope. To pour the very depths of my soul onto a canvas and inspire a future generation of artists to do the same as I have done. I want people to relate to what I have drawn, to what I have created. To see themselves represented upon a canvas, upon a statue, a sculpture, a drawing. To realize that they are not as alone as they believe themselves to be. That they are connected to me, connected to countless others who have gone through the same things that they have gone through. I want a trans person to feel represented in my work. To see themselves in my works about myself and my struggles with my own self worth. I plan to remind others that they are not alone. To bring representation to those who may not feel the most represented in the way that they look, in the way that they feel, in the way that they see. I plan to push my work out there for all to see. To those who want to view what I have done. View what I have created. Who wish to hold my artwork between their eager fingertips and commit it to heart. To those who are inspired by what I have done and create their own works because of it. I want to inspire. I want to ignite. Ignite a flame, ignite a passion in those who did not even know they had it within them to create, to inspire others like I want to do.

My greatest achievement to date was when I was 15 years old. As someone who had been their grandmother's favorite grandchild for as long as I can remember, she was a constant source of comfort in my life. It was an escape when I dealt with the hardships of living in a low-income household filled with parents who no longer loved each other. She was my hero, my escape from a life that was less than kind to my siblings. But as I got older, I began to change. I began to grow and realized that my grandmother was not the saint that I had always made her out to be. At the age of 14, I came out as bisexual -at the time- after I worried that the church I had frequented with my grandmother for years.... would hate me and scrutinize me for wanting to be baptized as a gay person. My parents both reassured me that was not the case. My mom encouraged me to come out to my grandmother and get her support. And I did. The week before Christmas I told her my secret, and though know I realize she never reassured me that I was okay, that she still loved me. I was so worried, so..... upset. That her hug was more than enough to soothe me. To calm my sobbing self down. Everything was fine for a few months or so. I was out, I was learning. I felt free. Finally free. To be myself. To be different. To finally feel a little more whole, in the emptiness that had plagued my heart my whole life... Until I attended a church event with my grandmother. An event she had invited me to where she could showcase her artwork, and sell her religious pieces. There was nothing wrong with that moment necessarily, there was no divide between us, no hatred, and I had helped her countless times before. What was one little event? Oh, but it was so much more. They spoke ill of the lgbtq+ community there. Preaching that we were all just confused sinners who were abused by their parents. Which frankly hurt. It hurt when the congregation -that I considered to be my second family- clapped. When my grandmother did the same. When I asked her and challenged her about her clapping, she defended them. Defended those who were calling her favorite grandchild a devil incarnate. I didn't speak to her for months afterward. Hurt and feeling betrayed by her honesty, by the words she would text me to make me feel guilty for not attending church anymore. The horrible lgbtq+ articles she would send me were nothing more than religious propaganda to convert me. Convert me and turn her back into her little disciple. I eventually realized how bitter my grandmother was when she came to "apologize" to me. Telling me I was overreacting and that I was "too young to truly understand what I was saying." Dismissing everything I said to her, told me that she was not the bad guy. That she was just being "truthful" with me. Telling me to "get over it." And I realized how much she had started to despise me. How she despised my differences from her, how she hated that I was not her perfect little Barbie doll anymore. Hated how I was now a teenager with thoughts and feelings of my own. Someone who was now arguing with her instead of letting her berate me and say horrible things about me as she had always done. My greatest achievement to date was when I stopped talking to her. When I decided to cut her completely out of my siblings' and I's lives. For the sake of myself. For the sake of my siblings who had been mistreated by her for years. For the sake of my future, and the people I want to inspire. To make feel welcomed with open arms for simply being themselves. Not to be shunned as I was. Tossed aside and berated for being different. To bring a sense of peace and love to those who need it. To those -like me- who deserve to simply be loved. That experience taught me that I am not my grandmother. That I will never push someone aside who is simply existing. Who's beliefs may be different from my own. That I will only ever push for people to be loved, to be cherished in the way I should've been.

My love of art stems from my mother. A woman of many skills, my mother was an actress, a stage hand, a singer, and a painter. A woman of many talents who pursued her love of the arts even while she was pregnant with me and my two younger siblings. Whether it is showcasing her own work or showcasing the art of others. My mom is my biggest supporter and my inspiration to become a better person. Both in my craft and with the people around me. She is constantly reminding me of my worth and pushes me to be better. To take my creative love for the arts and never let go. My favorite artist -who is not my mother- is Hugh Steers. A man who in his last few years of life before aids took a hold of him, poured his heart and his soul into his artwork. Something that I am hoping to do with my work, with my art. Taking the innermost workings of my soul and pouring them onto a canvas for all to see. Steer's works speak to me in a way I am unable to fully articulate into words. I have always struggled with my queerness. With the identity that is me. I have struggled to survive and to live with myself for as long as I can remember. Steer's works remind me of the humanity within myself. The humanity within my queerness. I observe his works and they speak to me. Tug at my heart strings and make me want to cry. Something so simple yet so raw about his works. Something so beautiful yet so sad about his depictions of queer men. Whether they be peaceful moments of stolen bliss, or a man comforting his dying lover in his arms. Steer died when he was 32. Stolen from the prime of his life by the sickness and the disease that was aids. That was America at the time. I can only pray he died surrounded by his loved ones, knowing he would be eternally at piece. He inspires me. In ways even my mother can't. He was so young. Still in the prime of his life when he passed. And I can only imagine the injustices and the backlash he faced for being himself. For painting what he saw. I cry when I think of him. When I think about what he's been through. When I see the raw oh so human emotions that are etched and painted so beautifully onto his peoples faces. And it makes me wonder. Makes me believe and hope that I can capture emotions and feelings so beautifully in my works. Reminds me to push myself and strive to create while I still have the time. For life is oh so fleeting. But oh so beautiful, even with death knocking at one's door.

Pursuing the fine arts as a career is a route that not very many people take. It is a path that more than likely will not make you a lot of money if you are not good at spreading your work to your intended audience. Pursuing it for me means a chance to collaborate with like-minded individuals to spread my message of love and be yourself wholeheartedly, and without fear. Collaboration for me means learning about other people's interests and what inspires them to pursue art. What drives them to pursue art, to succeed? To create something. To inspire. It is finding out what inspires my peers, and what about their works could inspire my own. Do their struggles mirror my own? Are we two sides of the same coin? Or are we from very different backgrounds? Very different struggles and traumas? Collaboration for me is to learn. To feel for my fellow artists. For my peers and for the mentors who teach me. It is to explore, and desire to do better. To learn from my peers and to hold their teachings with me always. To remind myself that even if we may be completely different as people, we are all connected by the same sole drive to create. To create without worry, without fear.To explore who we are. To make our marks on the world with the pieces we create. I have worked alongside many talented artists in my 18 years on this earth. From my sister to my mother. To the kids that draw with chalk on my street. To the talented artists, I worked alongside. I was making chalk art for competitive reasons. Art connects, art changes, and art makes one feel good and bad things. Working alongside artists who had been drawing for most of their lives, who made such beautiful creations of the things they loved, the things they believed in. From the mountains of Red Rock to the pets they had loved and taken care of since they were mere puppies and kittens. Relishing in how amazingly talented those strangers turned friends were. Realizing that with enough time and practice, I could become as good as they were. I was good enough to be allowed into that competition and could only become better with time. From the little kids I have drawn alongside, to the very experienced adults I had the pleasure of working alongside. Collaboration is art for me. To be a good artist, and to become better at what I do, I collaborate. I thrive, I learn, I teach, I feed. Feed upon the works of my peers, and become better for the lessons they teach me, and the lessons I teach them. Being collaborative inspires me. Inspires me to become better at what I do. To find out what makes people tick. To understand humanity. To understand the beauty and horror that is within us all. That spills from our souls and makes itself known upon our creations. Our artwork. Our livelihoods. Our children. Our creations.