For most of my life, I have felt an unrelenting pressure to define who I am and what that means. My identity was always under negotiation – my gender, the color of my skin, the size of my body – leaving me caught between how others saw me and who I knew myself to be. That tension created a silence around me. I wanted to belong, but every attempt to fit in only seemed to push me further outside the norm. I learned to shrink myself in public spaces, second-guess how I moved, spoke, and existed. Yet, whenever I was alone, drawing became the one place where I did not need to hide. At first, art was about survival. My sketchbooks absorbed the fear, self-doubt, and constant tug-of-war between wanting to disappear and needing to be seen. In those years, I also sought approval: obsessively creating celebrity portraits, fan art, and further reproductions of styles that were not mine. The more others admired my technical proficiency, the more I felt that was all I had to offer. However, my perspective on art was flipped when I first saw Jean-Michel Basquiat’s paintings. He wasn’t the first artist I had seen, but he was the first who looked like me. He created without permission, showed confident disregard for “pretty,” and showed me that art did not have to conform; it could be loud, messy, and alive. His work and artistic freedom have stayed with me, reminding me that honesty could matter more than polish. Over time, I began to see myself better, and in that, my work stopped being just a way to endure and became a way to define myself on my own terms. My process reflects that balance: graphite offers precision and intention, paint brings texture and looseness, and digital media provides structure. Some pieces are carefully planned, others emerge instinctively. I do not see control and freedom as opposites – together they mirror the complexity of navigating identity, fear, peace, and expression – the facets of mine and others’ human experience. I am a Black American who grew up without a father, a transgender man, and a type 1 diabetic who has wrestled with anxiety and depression. For a long time, I worried these truths would reduce me to categories. Now, I see them as inseparable from my perspective: they shape me without defining me entirely. Art has given me a language for what once felt unspeakable, transforming survival into self-definition.

I plan to study Graphic Design at Pratt Institute, with the goal of moving into art direction for animation, music videos, and album artwork. The beauty of this field to me is the way design choices can carry meaning symbolically, even in ways people don’t consciously notice. Typography, composition, and imagery communicate emotion and narrative underneath the surface fascinatingly, and I want to build a career creating work that strengthens storytelling through those at times overlooked, but crucial details. My interest in this field is deeply connected to my personal navigation of identity and expression. As a Black transgender queer man, I have been constantly battling with visibility, silence, and self-definition from a young age. I socially came out in 2019, at 11 years old, and began medical transition at 13. While I had immense support from my mother, coming out to the rest of my traditionally Black Christian family was still extremely tolling, and I often experienced avoidance or backlash that made me feel erased within my own environment; my father, not even present in my life, still refers to me as his “daughter” to this day. For a long time, I was not thinking about the future at all, focused on just getting through each day without feeling suffocated by others’ perceptions of me. Art became the space where I could process and understand myself. I was able to independently explore my gender and queerness without needing explanation or permission, and it shaped how I now approach creative work; creating what I’m passionate about, not what others have expected of me. I’m especially drawn to design because of its ability to communicate layered meaning, maintaining what may seem simple on the surface, while carrying deeper narrative and cultural weight underneath. I have been involved in LGBTQ+ spaces at school, such as GSA and QSU, since coming out. I also attended Transforming Families support groups throughout middle and early high school. Integrating myself in often predominantly white trans spaces, and hearing the stories of people even older than me struggling with their identity in silence, I felt solace in these meetings, but always a lingering feeling that I still didn’t belong. I noticed that, regardless of gender, still, no one looked like me. Therefore, I see my role in the community as something that continues through my creative work: mentoring where I can, advocating for fellow Black queer artists, and creating spaces and stories where all expression is visible and valued. Financially, this scholarship is important because it would allow me to continue my education without placing further strain on my family. My mother has been my rock and my sole advocate throughout my life, especially through my transition. She is a fellow queer person and Black single mother in Los Angeles with no external financial support. She has supported me through every part of my identity development, while also managing serious personal and financial challenges, such as surviving breast cancer, raising me as a child with type 1 diabetes, and working in a public sector job that is not financially stable in the political climate. She has never allowed me to truly feel the weight of her financial hardships, but as a result of that resilience, FAFSA calculations may suggest she can cover extensive educational costs. In reality, however, any loans would fall heavily, and on her alone. This scholarship would ease that burden and allow me to pursue my education, and give back to both my community and my mother while honoring the support she has given us both throughout my life.