In the United States, the state governments are waging an all out war against the lives of transgender people. As a member of the trans community, I feel the aftershocks of every piece of harmful legislation in my own state and in those around me. Such aftershocks ripple through every facet of ones life, even to smaller areas like within the classroom. This past semester, I transferred to a new university and found myself in a space where I had thought I would be safe and comfortable as a transgender student. But soon I was faced with constant misgendering and discomfort in the classroom. As this was going on, I was involved in a course on activism and was tasked with coming up with a piece of activist art. I knew from the beginning that I needed to create a piece on trans activism. So, I spent weeks creating a zine based around trans activism, rights, and self love, titled Violent Themme. This zine carried with it the rage I felt and the need to be heard that so many like me have inside of them. This piece was given out to the students of my class, my professor, and has now been self published online for free to anyone that needs or wants the validation and vital information that it contains. I hope to continue this project and create future editions in order to continue helping my community and spreading word about our history, struggles, and the beauty that comes with being a transgender person.

Mental illness has been a background character in the cinema of my life for as long as I can remember. A winding, unkillable vine that snaked its way through every facet, sometimes unnoticed. This vine twisted itself around me and those around me and choked out every ounce of normalcy with a precision that goes unmatched by even the best marksman. The cycle of mental illness and abuse were ever present, and this cycled shaped who I am and what I want for this world. As a survivor of child abuse, often you can feel as though the world has deprived you of something important and special. This gnawing feeling of spite and anger can consume you if unchecked. And this did consume me, for a time. I felt as though I was cheated and the world owed me something, that I deserved the normalcy that other children got the experience. I felt entitled to something more just by virtue of having less to start. While this is true, I did deserve more in my childhood, this is not obtainable to me now since we have yet to invent a time machine. Until the day we can have time machines, I had to allow these feelings to power me and my ideals. I had to accept what happened to me and find a way to channel it into something more worthwhile. My experiences make me who I am, and my experiences can be used to inform and support other people around me who may have gone through similar experiences. My deep dark hole that felt some inescapable for so long can be changed into a light at the end of the tunnel for someone else. I decided to go back to school and find a purpose that could help me become that light. I chose to study psychology and art, to pursue the goal of becoming a therapist that can help and understand the people that are struggling in this world. I want to be able to heal those around me with my passion for art and creation, to guide the hands fueled by anger and hurt to create something with them instead.

Does art have the ability to change the world? This is a the question that echoes through the minds of artists everywhere. The answer is not always a simple one. Rather than being the change itself, I think art has the potential to be the spark. I hope that with my work I can be the match to make that important part of the solution. My life has led me down a path where I have realized that to help the world, I have to share what makes me most passionate. So, becoming an art therapist seemed like the smartest answer to this. I want my work to be something that does not change the entire world, but something that can help others around me heal from how the world changed them. Trauma is something often unavoidable in the lives of many people, and finding a way to cope with that in a healthy, constructive manner can feel like a herculean feat some days. Having someone to reach out a hand and ask you to communicate at your level, at a level all humans can understand, and create with your own hands to heal the pain inflicted upon you by others is the kindest, most world changing thing I think I could do. I don't want to change the entire world, but I would like to heal it.

Living with a fractured sense of self, you begin to look at yourself in ways different from the everyday person. This self portrait is an ode to my self image and love of horror. The way trauma can effect the mind and body can make us feel as though we are festering and rotting from the inside out, it can make the person in the mirror look like a complete stranger, and can make our hands feel as though they work on their own separate from the whims of the mind and body they ought to be attached to. This piece brings all of that to a head, the act of binding my own face in plaster cloth and becoming blind for a while; letting only my friends guide my hands over a video call as I patiently wait for the release from the prison and the ability to see once more when it cures symbolic almost of the struggles of waiting for someone to reach out a hand and help you in your darkest moments. While the pouring of the plaster allows for you to become your own creator for a single moment in time, seeing your own conception taking place before you in the form of a white, viscous, liquid-- a primordial soup in its own right. And then the carving and filling of the holes, destruction and reformation of the self into a new but damaged version of the beautiful, untouched, white plaster of before. The holes are a call to one of my most favorite works of horror in the natural world-- the Suriname toad. This toad hatches its children from holes within its back. Pustules of amniotic fluid and infantile toads erupting from the back of the mother to bring forth hundreds of little lives. The act of carving and filling the holes with the colored resin making a new life for this piece, just as the sacs on the back of the frog fill and create new life for all the baby toads. This work also takes inspiration from the works of Johnson Tsang, a prolific sculptor who works with porcelain to create haunting yet beautiful sculptures of the human head. The contortions of the face in the pale, white medium becoming ethereal in appearance. My plaster head is a love letter to his porcelain heads and their emotional states. My form cast in plaster and emulating the relaxed, sleeping face of someone at rest echoing the seemingly restful forms of some of his works. Negative and positive emotions both take up residence in the works of Tsang, both captivating in their own ways and something I hoped to capture in my piece as well.

Mental health is at the forefront of my life and my career, both artistically and academically. I seek to empower and give light to the struggles people may face within their own minds. My vision is about shedding a light on the uglier parts of what take up residence in our heads and creating something meaningful and enlightening through it. I live my life with cPTSD, a dissociative disorder, and a myriad of other mental health struggles, through these problems I have found strength and purpose. A voice that has led me on my journey as a creator and a student. I seek to use my passion for creation to help others who have struggled like I have through the usage of art as a therapy technique. I want to lift up marginalized voices and give way for people to heal through creativity, to be a light at the end of a dark tunnel for people.