# data[].attributes.body
I grew up in a military family. For most of my life I have lived on military bases. In fact, It wasn't until we moved to Texas where we truly lived off of one. I was born in Anchorage Alaska on January 20th, 2005. Only 6 months later we moved, although I don't remember where. I grew up in Virginia where I attended pre-k and Kindergarten. After which we moved to North Carolina to live with my mothers parents after my dad was deployed to Afghanistan. Although we only lived here for my 1st and 2nd grade years, Lexington North Carolina is where I would say I'm "from". From North Carolina we moved to Georgia, where my parents bought a house only for my dad to be re-stationed less than a year later, when we moved back to Virginia. We stayed in Fort Eustis for 3 years before moving to Arizona for another 3 years (Arizona remains one of my favorite states to this day!). From there we moved to Ansbach Germany for 3 years. This is where I started high School, in which I joined the JROTC program to compete in their marksmanship program. This is to this day one of my favorite sports, and also what I would consider my greatest skill. I competed across Germany and then in the international competition for about a year, but was unable to progress due to Covid-19. I often look back on this program very fondly. Some of my happiest memories were when I was competing, but admittedly the sport took a heavy toll on my mental health. Oftentimes I was obsessing over literal micrometer differences in shots that could be the difference between winning or losing a competition. We moved back to the states in December of 2020. The rest of my high school years were spent at Lake Belton High School in Temple Texas. This was where I was first introduced to theatre. The program there is the sole reason I ever discovered theatre as a career, and I continue to support them in every way possible for opening up this opportunity for me.

My experiences in theatre are quite limited compared to many of my peers who have spent their whole lives working on shows. The first production I ever worked on was Jane Eyre as props master. I planned on quitting theatre after this show because I initially only worked on it for an arts credit. The then technical director convinced me to stay with the department, and taught me how to do lighting which is when I really fell in love with theatre. During my senior year of high school I was the assistant technical director for the entire year, and worked on every show. I was allowed to stage manage our UIL OAP performance for that year, which was my first formal introduction to stage management, and I fell in love with the process and decided to pursue it in college, which pretty much sums up my life story until now!

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
This is a photo that in my opinion captures the art in the mundane I mention in my paragraph. As a photographer myself I find images like these to be almost a testament to the beauty and artistry of the regular. 

# data[].attributes.body
So much of the college experience is discovering yourself and your identity. My first personal statement I briefly discussed my struggle with my personal identity as an artist. Since then I believe I have improved as an artist, but that is only because I have grown as a person. I do not have to tie my identity to that of an artist if I do not wish. In the preparatory class to this one, performance as a public practice, I wrote about the struggle faced not just by myself, but many technicians in associating their work with art. This is because so much if that work is, well, strictly technical. This is in direct opposition to the common understanding that art is not technical, it is natural. This is not all art of course, but if we are working in the stereotype of art, this makes sense. It is easy to see the art in acting. Impersonation of another person, completely immersing oneself in the words and feelings of an author and translating that to an audience is inherently artistic in nature. I find you would be hard pressed to find people who would argue acting isn't an artistic medium. Technical work however, doesn't feel this way. The constant emails, spreadsheets, tracking lists, screens, knobs, bulbs etc. make it hard to associate with anything but work. But although it is easy to think of it that way, I don't think it should be the only way to think of it. Yes, our work is work, but it is also art. It is the art of creating art. Over the last several months I have come to find art in everything. There is art to art to art. Being artistic doesn't have to fit within the traditional or even the contemporary definitions to art. It can simply be anything. As I mentioned earlier, I wrote about this in PPP, and I think it has helped me open up the idea of myself being an artist. This is not to say my entire identity is based on my abilities as an artist, but I do think that it helps me see the beauty of my work, and that has helped me continue pushing myself to improve in all aspects of my life. There is still much exploration of myself I have yet to reach, but carrying this mindset with me will help me when I get to those points in my life.

# data[].attributes.body
I think something that is so great about collaboration in our field of work is the community that we build around it. It is so intimidating for new students to come to college. I know that personally I thought I was really going to struggle fitting in with any social groups or community on campus, but that worry faded even just after working on Ride The Cyclone. it becomes very evident very quick that the work we do builds trust amongst one another. Every aspect of theatre is inherently collaborative in nature, and collaboration forms community. In my previous statements, I mentioned that an important question to ask amongst collaborators is how to foster a community around it. Looking back on it I longer agree with this question. I personally believe that a strong group of collaborators will never have to ask this question because it will just happen anyway. A community is going to form no matter what. The better question to ask is how can we as collaborators foster this community in a way that aligns with our values as a group. This shifts the question away from "can we make a community?" to "How can we steer the community in a healthy way towards something we all want". The latter is much more specific that the first, but it helps place our community in a healthy spot. In my day to day I interact with many people from many different communities and social circles. All of them are similar in the way that they are part of these groups because they all share something in common, and I think a better community can be fostered when we steer the community as a whole rather than solely focusing on the creation of one.