My favorite piece I have done is a collage in my sketchbook. It is about the devastating affects of climate change and how the Earth is beautiful, too beautiful for the horrific consequences of climate change. This is my favorite piece because I put much of my frustration of the current issues in the world into this piece and it will hopefully wake people up to how truly bad climate change is. Collage is also one of my favorite mediums! Nearly everything glued onto these pages have a meaning behind it. Made with NatGeo magazine clippings and trash from my room. The feathers represent the rapid decline of bird populations and the terrible affects of colonialism onto Indigenous peoples and their land, the animal skins represent illegal poaching, “recycle today for a better tomorrow” when billionaires and greedy corporations keep polluting our planet and profiting off of slave labor, the gun represents war and destruction; how innocent lives are lost, and finally our beautiful land (represented by the forests and flower meadows) being destroyed for rapid industrialization (the factories shown.) I am currently attending Lyon College here in my hometown, Batesville, AR and majoring in art! Thank you for viewing my work as I never really share it with others!

For all my life the people around me have told me that I will never be able to make art a full-time passion, I am determined to prove them wrong. Since I could remember I have been drawing. It started out with Dora the Explorer coloring books and my Kindergarten teacher praising me for coloring inside the lines. Now I am a sophomore in college and majoring in art! Drawing has ALWAYS been an escape for me; I never really fit in with everyone else while growing up so drawing all of my interests in my sketchbooks helped me ignore the chaos in the world. I am thankful to have parents that encouraged this hobby of mine and supported me throughout my childhood. Without their support, I would not be where I am today. Art has always been a major part of my life and I cannot imagine a different one without it. This determination for achieving my dreams as an artist all started when I met Professor Dustyn Bork from Lyon College, who prefers to be called just Dustyn. I believe I first met him when he visited my high-school to help make shirts for the Art Club by manually printing them, which was a learning experience by itself. The shirts were for an upcoming art event, AYAA. He encouraged me to attend Lyon College and ignore the folks that tell me “you can’t get a good job as an artist.” These words helped uplift me and pursue my passion. He became a person that I can really look up to, considering all of his experiences and accomplishments doing art as a profession! This summer (2025,) he invited me to work on a mural for a local business, Snowy Pines, here in Batesville, AR. This has been a huge learning experience, considering that I have NEVER painted a full-fledged mural for a business before! Doing this has not only given me some money to live off of, but also some new art skills and learning how to collaborate with fellow artists. It is a small team of us but we have made so much progress in two weeks! Our cooperation with each other has made painting this mural a breeze, despite the brutal Arkansas heat. Without Dustyn, I would not be where I am at in my college career, considered majoring in art, and doing this mural . I can hope that my words has helped fellow young artists consider that you CAN make a living off of doing art! Do not give up on your dreams, do something you love!