The everyday world is my most well loved muse, as I have always been inspired by it. My first foray into art was as a young photographer. I was fascinated with macro images of flowers, insects, water droplets. I then moved into event photography, and start capturing the frenetic, chaotic world of night club burlesque, with its movement, light and energy. It was always everyday people, glittered and dressed to the nines swirling and twirling on stage. As I grew older, the everyday world continued to be my main source of inspiration as I took up drawing, landscape photography, and water colors. So many mediums to try, so little time. I have loved art of all types throughout my life, and am currently studying oil painting, painting murals and illustration. I am an adult returning student, focused on studying tangible art mediums. I have worked in the non-profit sector for much of my adulthood, and would like to use my experience and education to give the gift of art to people in my area who might not have had the opportunity to explore it before. My intention is to create an art education based community center and offer classes to artists of all ages. The everyday world is what has always inspired me, and what will continue to inspire me. I want to capture and share the beauty and magic in this world, just as it is. Thank you for your consideration for this award, and the support you offer to student artists.

I have spent a lot of years running from what I really wanted to do. Because it felt silly, because it felt irresponsible, or like it couldn't be a real "career". Now, being 35 and returning to college to chase the dream of a creative career, I couldn't be happier to be where I am. Freedom of expression means so much more than putting a brush to a canvas, or snapping a perfect picture. It means finally allowing the story that has been writing itself in my heart out into the world at last. I think for a lot of creative people who got talked into more "serious" careers, it can feel like your story doesn't need to be told, or that someone else is telling it better than you could already. But what I am learning as an adult returning student is that my story, my specific perspective cannot be recreated by someone who isn't me. That my voice, my history, matters. Learning how to translate that voice into tangible art forms is not only incredibly gratifying, but also freeing. You don't have to be a young ingenue, or a wunderkind genius to have your experiences matter. The older you get, the more you know what you didn't know as a young twenty something. With age, comes wisdom. As I complete my degree in Visual Arts Communication, I am unlocking my ability to speak all out loud the things practicality asked me to put away. I am learning new ways to express myself, and new ways to share that with the world. I have included my first ever oil painting still life, not only because I am proud of the learning that is evident in the piece, but also because it is the first of many more to come.

Creating opportunities for my community's youth is my number one goal for the future. In the long term, I want to create a non-profit community center that provides art education to students of all ages for low or no cost. I want to ensure that my chosen home and community has the opportunity to learn and experience the tangible joy of making and creating. In the shorter term, I want to create public art projects like murals and sculpture gardens that include the talents and skills of students. Giving art back to the next generation, and sharing it with those my age and older is my biggest passion. I believe the ability to create and express externally your inner self, is an activity of innate human nature, which should be nourished and encouraged in everyone. I, myself have always been drawn to any form of art. Painting, drawing, writing, photographing, dancing, singing. Anything that felt like a tangible way to express the turmoil I had inside me while growing up. I struggled, entering adulthood. College at the time seemed insurmountable. I ended up chasing art instead, working as an artist's assistant in a gallery, learning the basics of surviving in an art scene. I learned about painting, and photography - I entered the world of nightlife and became a photographer for performers. The colors, music and movement became my muse. Though after a time I had to choose steady work over art, I never stopped making things. Hobby or income, art was where my heart was, and still is. As I grew older, I recognized how much the act of creating, in almost any form, had become a vital part of how I survived and expressed myself. Life continued to change and I moved across the country, and started a life in a small community in Upstate New York. As I got to know the area and the community, I found that access to art education that I reveled in as a child and young adult was no where near as prevalent or available, especially in the under resourced and impoverished parts of my community. This is an area that is struggling to recover after the collapse of the Rust Belt economy, and burdened with the heartbreak of loss of industry that can throw off entire generations' stability and purpose. This has created a culture of survival and that has meant that the essentials take priority, and art has become a luxury. It is my dearest wish to give art education to this area that I call home, and create a legacy of mentoring and encouraging the children, youth and elders of my community in the joy of creation and expression. Offering both a series of tangible skills, and a therapeutic expression of their inner selves. My plan is to use my education in visual arts to start community based art projects, murals, sculpture gardens and other projects to enmesh art more in the community itself, and then use the momentum of those projects to create a thriving community center of art education and creation, with a student filled gallery of artwork, that can be used to help uplift emerging artists and further support the community center's goals and projects. I have had a long road back to formal education. As an adult returning student, I have had the opportunity to have real world experiences that give me first hand knowledge of my community's needs. I have seen in real time how art can turn someone's life around. It is my wish create a space for that in my community.

To call the arts anything but the lifeboat that kept me afloat during the stormy and ever changing seas of my childhood and young adulthood, would be underselling it. I've been creating and making since before I can remember, trinkets and art projects from the early nineties are now rarified family artifacts, a lumpy clay cat, a jack rabbit made out of leaves, a watercolor painting with a poem is framed, and beloved. I've always loved the feeling of creating the tangible and intangible from my own mind and hands. Clumsily, at times, but always with a fervent need to express what was going on within myself, what I was dreaming. In my home, my mother's hands were always busy. I had more homemade clothes than anyone I knew, she crocheted everyone we knew a baby blanket, a set of pot holders. When I was eight she took me to a drawing class with a gentleman in the retirement home where she worked, he taught us to shade and shape a rubber ball, and played Frank Sinatra CDs on a boombox while we sketched in the sunroom. My mother was never afraid to try something new, and even be bad at it at first, and she encouraged me to try and test everything that seemed interesting to me. With her as my permission slip I tried dance, painting, drawing, and finally my big loves, writing and performing. By the time I was in high school I was in musical theater productions, stage plays, and was captain of the Speech and Debate team. I thrived in the spotlight, being creative and inventive. My mother was always my biggest cheerleader, and encouraged me in anyway she could. For a time, though, we grew very far apart. I struggled after graduating high school, and completed only one semester of college, dropping out and starting to work instead. My parents were furious, and for a few years, we didn't really speak. I struggled financially, but I was still seeking out art at every opportunity, working in an art gallery as an artist's assistant for a time, learning to paint, learning the art of the gallery show. I found a small niche for myself in photography, specifically doing burlesque photography in night clubs, and portraits of performers and models in the LGBTQ community, and the body positivity community. I always struggled financially, doing my art as a side gig around jobs that I worked just to pay the bills. I sought the most alternative education when it came to art, seeking it out in every way outside of formal schooling. Through every hardship I found a new way to express myself, and learned a new skill, my hands hungry for the act of making. My parents ended up getting a divorce when I was in my early 20s, and my mother reentered my life. I showed her the ways that I had continued to create and make while we had been parted, and she took up her mantle as number one fan once again. She, always inspirational, went back to nursing school in her late fifties, reclaimed her independence and proved to me time and time again that it is never too late to start again. And now, at 34, I am ready to follow in her footsteps again and return to school. This time to learn and earn the degree to go with my passion and natural proclivity for the arts. I am still painting, writing, photographing. It's time now to turn these talents into a career I can fall in love with.

Collaboration is at the heart of all great artistic performances or events. My first knowledge of this came to me through my early years in dance, and theater. The show must go on, but it's not just the ones in the sparkly costumes under the lights that make it go. It's the people wearing all black with headsets, communicating when the curtain goes up, when the props go out. It's the people choreographing the scenes, long before they're on the stage, it's the tireless hands of loving mothers, sewing costume after costume, and it's even the kids selling home made baked goods in the lobby, funding the theater camp, paying to rent the space. From there I learned that art, largely, is a team effort. No great art sees the sun without at least a little collaboration, and in my future, the only way through is collaboration. My goal, after pursuing my degree, is to create and open a community center focused on extra curricular art education for students of all ages. Now while I can try to master every art form well enough to teach it, that seems too lofty a goal. What I am trying to create, is a large collaboration between me, people who want to share their love and knowledge of art, and my community. This will take patience, as no project for the good of the public goes unscrutinized, but it will be a love letter to collaborating those who can teach and those who want to learn. Everyone bringing a part of themselves to create a greater good, a space truly made for those who want to learn about art - at any age. I have worked in creative collaborative spaces many times, from my earliest days as a theater kid, to now, as an adult working on large scale interior design projects, such as the rehabilitation of an old school house into a thriving, and beautiful apartment community. The project was a big collaboration from so many different types of artisans and workers. I was the lead assistant to the interior designer, and was responsible for making sure that the different factions had what they needed to complete their part of the larger project. It took over seven months of negotiating time and space for construction workers, muralists, painters to have ample opportunity to do their best work. Not to mention, adding my own details in between with helping the selection of fixtures and art pieces to leave my own small mark on the larger project. That's what true collaboration means, giving yourself to something larger than you, and seeing how your mark weaves into the larger tapestry. It's not about crowning yourself with the glory, but saying look - see what we accomplished together? It's been a long road for me, as an adult returning student, to come back to my education. I have spent years working jobs just to pay the bills and all the various art forms that I love have taken a backseat as only a hobby. Now, I want to make art the forefront of my life, and create the opportunities in my community that I see a need for. Any financial help will go towards my tuition and living expenses as I complete my degree.

I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, lucky to be in a place that loved art and artists more than any other place I have known. Since I was small, art has motivated me. It started young, at community centers, where I learned drawing, painting, pottery, poetry, and dance. It saved me in times of darkness and further uplifted me in times of joy. I have always found creating to be the best and most tangible way to get my feelings, my point of view, my trauma from inside me to out into the world. It is my deepest wish to bring this relationship I share with art to the members of my new community who might not have had the opportunity. In continuing my education and pursuing my degree, I hope to become an advocate for art for students of all ages, by creating something in my community it greatly needs: extra curricular arts education, presented in a non profit community center. Living where I do now, in a small Upstate New York town that is still smothered under the Rust Belt ideology, art education has taken a back seat to other ventures, as it had to, in order for the area to survive financial crisis after financial crisis. Now, the Southern Tier has reached a plateau of stasis. We aren't as impoverished, but arts education isn't as readily available, isn't used as a tool to cope with the generational trauma of living in an area that has been forgotten by industry giants and left abandoned by them. There is a pride here, beneath the cynicism. There is a unique voice, whose story is not being told because authoring it hasn't been seen as practical. It is my dream, to bring that voice and that story to the forefront through the arts. If we begin to offer these kinds of classes to people of all ages, who haven't had the opportunity before, who knows what great art we will discover has just been bubbling under the surface, waiting to be born. I want to create a place where people can not only learn, but surprise themselves with what they can create. I have walked a long road to this point, as an adult returning to student after over a decade away from higher education, I face unusual challenges to pursuing my degree. I have worked jobs 'just to pay the bills' for fifteen years. I have always had art as a hobby, as something I did just for fun. And now I am chasing the far off dream of an education and career that goes along with it, both focused on art and its use as therapeutic tool for an entire community. I have a deep need to be of service to my newfound community, and this is the best way that I can translate that need into reality. Any assistance financially will go to help me afford my classes, and help me with living expenses as I focus on studying. I have taken a big risk, walking away from full-time work to go back to school, but I have come to the point in my life where the bigger risk is not chasing my passion, and not creating what I wish to see in the world.

I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, lucky to be in a place that loved art and artists more than any other place I have known. Since I was small, art has motivated me. It started young, at community centers, where I learned drawing, painting, pottery, poetry, and photography. It saved me in times of darkness and further uplifted me in times of joy. I have always found creating to be the best and most tangible way to get my feelings, my point of view, my trauma from inside me to out into the world. Photography became the ultimate way for me to capture how I was feeling, to capture the fleeting moments of life that became to define my world as if stamped onto the back of my eyelids. Lighting, shade, color, space. Capturing something special became its own kind of reward. I spent ages photographing flowers, animals, architecture, and my friends - when they were willing. I started photographing others en masse in night clubs, ages ago, as a freshly minted 21 year old. Burlesque, drag, jugglers, clowns, dancers. They all populated the clubs I worked at, for often nothing more than a drink ticket and bus fare home. Something about the joyful clash of colors, movement and noise still inspires me to this day. There was no better way to capture the feverish love of life, than photography. It is my desire to capture the life of my new home in the same way. I have lived in Upstate New York for the past ten years. It is a place left wounded by industries that used up what they could and left abandoned after they had finished. The Southern Tier, while naturally beautiful, has lacked a way to tell its true story, to capture the vibrancy of its life. Because life happens here, just as vividly, as it did in the nightclubs that I began in. Photography has become my tool to help in the way that I can. I have used social media to publish my adventures learning and seeing this beautiful place for all its different facets. My next project is to learn more about art and photography and writing to tell the true story of Upstate New York. I plan on using every tool at my disposal during my education to learn how to capture and tell the story of my newfound home. I have walked a long road to this point, as an adult returning to student after over a decade away from higher education, I face unusual challenges to pursuing my degree. I have worked jobs 'just to pay the bills' for fifteen years. I have always had photography as a hobby, as something I did just for fun. And now I am chasing the far off dream of an education and career that goes along with it, both focused on not only photography, but art and its use as therapeutic tool for an entire community. I have a deep need to be of service to my adopted home, and this is the best way that I can translate that need into reality. Any assistance financially will go to help me afford my classes, and help me with living expenses as I focus on studying. I have taken a big risk, walking away from full-time work to go back to school, but I have come to the point in my life where the bigger risk is not chasing my passion, and not creating what I wish to see in the world.

When I first discovered the LGBTQ+ community, I was already an adult. Or, just barely one anyway. At 21, I started photographing drag performers and burlesque dancers in Portland, Oregon night clubs. It was a largely unpaid or "drink tickets only" type of job, but I loved it. For the first time in my life, I was where the magic was happening. Queer performers of all shapes, sizes, sexualities and presentations manifested before me in sparkling, twirling glory. I photographed them so the photos could be posted to Facebook in large chunky albums - this was well before Instagram had taken over. And I loved it, for the first time I had an answer to the nebulous question that had been growing in my chest since I had hit puberty - was it possible to be bisexual and happy? Growing up under strict Catholic rule, I had known there was something different about my sexuality than the other kids I knew. The hard borders of love and sin were clearly defined for me, but I could never seem to fit all of myself within them. Life, I knew, had be more complicated than that. I asked my mother at some point around 15: "What would you think if I liked both girls and boys?" "The church tells us it's a sin, an unforgivable one. And what's more.." She looked me dead in the eyes and said "Gay people of any kind just live sad, hard lives. You could never be happy that way." It took me years to address it again, even in my own heart. My relationship with the LGBTQ+ community was a love affair from far away where I admired anyone who was brave enough to be different, to love differently. Photographing them as they performed was my first taste up close. It took a few years, until I was about 25 to come out myself. Even my mother has made peace with it now, almost 10 years later, and I am an out and proud bisexual woman. If my road to making peace with true self was a twisty one, my road to education is much the same. I have spent the past 14 years working a wide variety of roles, including community restorative justice and mediation, specialized customer service, professional kitchen management and executive assistant experience. But now, I am being called to return to my artistic roots. I am looking to begin again, at the age of 34, to go back to school and pursue the education I have been looking for. I am studying for a Visual Arts Communication degree from SUNY Broome Community College, to transfer in to Binghamton University for an eventual bachelor's degree. I am taking the time to learn the visual arts skills, and communication skills I need to become an advocate for extra curricular arts education in my community. To do this, I will need to have the financial stability to step back from full time employment to begin my educational career. I am applying to this scholarship in the hopes that it will help ease some of the financial burden. It is my hope to create and advocate for spaces dedicated to arts education, and create the sanctuary for other creative LGBTQ+ people that I sought out during my youth. With your help, I will be able to turn my education back into my local community to create spaces that will foster more creative growth, for students of all ages and kinds.

I plan on creating a non-profit community center focused on arts and community education for students of all ages. Growing up, the community centers in my home city were the place which impacted me the most. I learned so many different things, from painting and pottery to musical theater and dance, from community centers. As I pursue my Associates Degree in Visual Arts & Communication, it is my intention to use my education to move the extra curricular schooling opportunities in my area to offer more arts classes, create more community focused art projects, and imbibe in my community a pride in their own special brand of art. As I have worked through the early parts of my career, art could only be a beloved hobby. As a photographer, painter or writer, I had to attach the moniker "amateur" to the front of each. I have always spent time creating in the background of whatever I was doing to pay the bills. However, art has always been the biggest and most important part of my character. I took a long time away from my own education, unsure of how I could support myself and give the gift of art to my community in the ways that I wanted to. But with my older, more experienced eyes, I can see that answer is simple: I need to be able to offer them the same opportunities I had to experiment and explore as a child, and the ones I need now as an adult. My dream may need to start small, with just me getting the education I need to be able to use art to grow my cause, and the support within my community. This is not an over night story, but one that has years to go. With your support, through getting my education, I will be able to start making the changes in the world that I wish to see. Right here, in my community, giving the people here the chance to express, create and find hope in an area where such opportunity has been lacking before. We all know the miraculous power of art, and the special magic contained within creation to uplift the spirit and offer hope to those who have not had it. For me, being able to bring this, even in my own small way, into the world would mean everything.