Art is a funny thing. It is deeply personal yet incredibly communicative. Art adds value to everything. Once I truly gave myself up to this concept, I made myself available at school to whomever needed value added. During my freshman year, I was head photographer for the yearbook. I worked hard to capture the essence of the students and their experiences at our high school particularly, in my candid photographs. One particular photograph of an exchange student with his hand raised to the sky, ended up being chosen for the largest spread in the yearbook. This photo was also chosen by the school as the annual gift for the alumni. Although yearbook is only allowed for one year, when I began my sophomore year, the school was short on photographers so I continued taking pictures for the yearbook even though I would not receive any school credit for such. My former teacher had asked me to help and I willingly agreed. Art doesn't say no. Prior to Covid hitting, I volunteered at a middle school on Tuesdays, helping the students design and create the sets for their annual school musical, Shrek. I greatly enjoyed working with the students as a team and enjoyed being part of their creative process. By building and painting the sets, the students and I were able to experience collectively, the joy and satisfaction that creating art brings. It was amazing to see many of the students dive in and work to improve their artistic skills as they became very vested in their work especially those students that were not initially interested in making art. I saw first hand how art brought together a diverse group of students. This year, when the new theater teacher needed a poster for the school production, I offered to design it. I created the poster working on the weekends. The poster was a hit and I was shocked when I saw students walking around school a few weeks later, with my artwork on their crew tee shirts. To me, art adds a quality and a depth to life that I am compelled to share with others.

Regardless of the criteria, I totally don't deserve this scholarship. There is nothing special about me. I am just your average high school slacker, no leadership roles, no serious volunteer hours to improve the community, no SAT score because they kept cancelling the dates, and a gpa that while good is certainly not eye popping. Although I definitely want to go to college, given my total lack of motivation, propensity to procrastinate and general teenage malaise, it is pretty much guaranteed that I will either drop out or take the seven year plan for a four year degree in film which my dad likes to point out, I don't even need a degree for. Career goals ... writer/director (note to self don't quit your day job at AMC until you've shown at Sundance). Every morning that I throw my leg over the side of the bed, push off my circa 1970s crochet blanket that still smells a bit like the thrift store, and step down onto the cold hardwood floor I overcome an obstacle - myself, my cozy bed and the horrible, lingering effect of the Pandemic.

Although history has not been particularly kind to woman inventors, I am truly inspired by problem solvers like Mary Anderson. In 1902, Mary (who did not drive) was visiting New York City and while she rode the trolley she noticed that the driver had to lean out to clean the front window that filled with sleet. Mary saw a problem and imagined a windshield wiper blade on an arm that could be operated from inside to increase visibility. While many people conceptualize ideas that never go farther than their head or imagination, Mary went home and with no formal education found a designer to draw her device, hired a company to create a model, and applied for and was granted a 17 year patent in 1903. It was a pretty brilliant device that I think fundamentally changed the landscape of driving and increased safety. Did Mary make millions on her patent? Mary never made a penny on her patent. Mary Anderson's design was so forward thinking that it was pre Henry Ford's Model T. After her patent expired, Cadillac a year or so later, became the first car manufacturer to provide windshield wipers as standard equipment utilizing her design with zero royalties to Mary. While Mary did not profit from her invention, I really admire how she saw a problem (a problem they don't have in Alabama which was where she was from) and sat down and invented a brilliant solution to it. She was not deterred by her lack of education, and it never occurred to her that a woman cannot or could not create and invent. I hold Mary Anderson close in my heart and my head so that I too can be a problem solver as I hope to make the world a bit better.

Optimism is the secret sauce of life. It is one of the few influences that remains in your control because it is not bound by race, economics or societal constraints. If you had asked me pre-COVID whether I was optimistic I probably would have been noncommittal. The advent of the Pandemic however, was a true test of optimism on a national level and at a personal level. The isolation I experienced when my high school went remote was frankly, soul crushing. As the Pandemic dragged on, it became clear to me that I needed to effectuate a paradigm shift in myself if I was going to stay motivated and interested in life. I spent considerable time learning about the effects of plagues and natural disasters throughout history to understand just how resilient we humans actually are. It helped me to grasp intellectually but more importantly, emotionally that even though bad things happen around us, we are incredibly adaptive and I am inspired by how people have persevered throughout time. By looking at our past, it inspired me to be to turn an optimistic eye towards the future and to look forward to what the future has to offer. Once I let go of the dread, my optimism reframed almost everything I came upon. I learned how to play electric bass guitar which has been very gratifying. I am excited for college and what the future has to offer and most importantly, that through my optimism, I can have control over my future and my choices.

Appa at a Party This is my French Bulldog Appa (yes from the Last Airbender) at his first evening outdoor party where my friends were skateboarding in a pool. He thoroughly enjoyed it.

When Sigmund Freud asserted in 1924 that biology is the key determinant of gender identity, he single handedly locked women into Victorian era gender roles of the good wife and homemaker, and to this day we are still trying to crawl out. Until society recognizes that neither biology nor social norms should define gender roles, patriarchal domination will continue to persist and oppress women. One of the best ways to keep a good woman down and reinforce patriarchal rigidity, is the pay gap. It is a known fact in the United States that men are paid more for performing their job just because they are men. The gender pay gap is direct discrimination against women. The wage gap is a sad reality for all women regardless of their race, educational background or their work experience and in my opinion continues to thwart female empowerment. A common misconception about the gender pay gap is that it is said that it is women’s choices that account for why their pay is less than men’s pay, and not gender discrimination. Thus, for example, women "choose" to have children and thus have less education (less time for education) and less hours available for work splitting their time as primary caregiver. That however is just plain rhetoric. Women are going to college and obtaining degrees in greater numbers than men. One of the biggest reasons for pay disparity is the Equal Pay Act of 1963 which allows men to be paid a higher wage than their female counterparts on the basis of seniority, merit, productivity and differentials based on any other factor other than sex. This has created a loophole because there is no definition in the Act of what is a factor other than sex. Employers can and do continue to discriminate against women by paying them less for equal work as long as they chalk it up to some “other factor.” To narrow the gender pay gap and truly empower women, we need a multifaceted approach from the ground up starting with education. Each of us needs to encourage girls to take more science and math classes and to choose careers in fields that have higher growth potential. We need to change ideas about workplace flexibility especially in high paying careers like law where long hours are valued to be able to make partner at the firm which often penalizes women (particularly women with children). We need new laws about pay transparency so that women can discuss their salaries which will make it more difficult for employers to pay male workers more than female workers, and finally we need the Legislature to close the loophole in the Equal Pay Act to stop pay discrimination. Equal pay is a right that all women deserve.

There is nothing so satisfying as mastering a bass riff. During Covid, I used my extra time at home as a result of remote learning, to learn how to play electric bass guitar. I practiced 2-3 hours every day which allowed me to become quite proficient in a year. I would never have been able to devote this amount of time, energy and focus but for the pandemic. As I refined my skills, I would often practice on the balcony outside so my neighbors got a chance to hear some classic 1970’s music. Playing bass guitar has definitely helped me express my love of music and it has helped me positively deal with some of the isolating aspects of the pandemic.

Have you ever seen something as a child that has fundamentally shaped your life? When I was very young my mother gave me one coloring book (she was always against coloring books). It was paintings by Pablo Picasso that you could color in. "Paul Dressed As Harlequin" painted by Pablo Picasso in 1924, was I believe, the first page of the coloring book. Since I had never seen the actual painting, I just colored it in how I saw fit and I am pretty sure my Paul had violet colored skin. I remember liking how the boy stared straight at me while I colored him, and that there wasn't a lot of background to distract from his gaze. I loved then as I love now, how much Picasso's vision changed and evolved over time and the coloring book which started with his representational works like the one of his son, Paul, finished up with "Weeping Woman" created in 1937. This painting floored me. It's funny how as a child we can see things without baggage and preconceived notions. I remember loving this painting because her tears (I knew she was crying) were like beams of light on her face shining downward. There was nothing unusual, at least to me, about how flattened her face was so that you could essentially see a side view and a front view simultaneously. I am still in awe of Picasso's genius in trying to portray a person from every possible angle at once (and perhaps every emotion at once). It is these two paintings that created a lasting love of art for me and a passion to paint and draw what I see and imagine.