If I had to choose one person who has influenced my values most as a teaching artist it would be Dede Clark, owner of kidsActing Studio and lifelong mentor. Her lessons of empathy and inclusion exemplified throughout my childhood can be summed up in her quote, “It’s about letting each person be safe in discovering who they really are… We have kids in shows that range from being really timid to wildly outgoing. We have kids with a various range of disabilities that we teach. We have kids on every gender spectrum. And it’s all good. It’s all wonderful because that’s who they are.”

The entertainment industry is riddled with competition, but I value my collaborative achievements on a much grander scale than my individual projects. This is because I value experiencing empowerment through community building. I hope to facilitate that for other people as well through my artistic activism. I believe that shame is the opposite of art and shedding a "same shame" through artistic expression builds community. 

One of the most transformative experiences of my life where I was able to put this sentiment into action was co-hosting the Austin Women’s March in 2020. We successfully and safely completed our event despite an attempted hijacking from a national domestic terrorist group. Planning the event was an intensive workshop on collaboration; my two co-hosts and I entered as complete strangers, and now they are two of my closest friends. It truly taught me the deep value of building relationships through collaboration, vulnerability, and trust while remaining calm in the face of extreme chaos. 

Confronting and continuing to heal from trauma has dramatically affected the work I aim to create. When we confront our trauma, we acknowledge the things we've overcome while intentionally deciding to no longer let it hinder our present; including our work. Voicing my experience with chronic illness on public platforms like Health.com after being labeled as "hysterical" for so many years was not only cathartic, but granted me the power to help other patients with a shared experience. If my work can influence just a single person’s life in a positive way or inspire them to explore their true identity as an artist free from patriarchal and ableist barriers placed by society, I will consider myself a successful artist. 

I have experienced some level of chronic pain for as long as I can remember, but especially after I started my period at age 13. By 16 years old, I was missing school on a monthly basis and was prescribed birth control to manage my irregular and painful periods. The thought of eating breakfast before attending school became repulsive due to my intense daily nausea and cramping; rarely subsiding before lunchtime. After years of misdiagnosis and being told my painful periods were simply an “initiation into womanhood”, I was diagnosed with Endometriosis at 21 years old through my first laparoscopic surgery. 1 in 10 AFAB (assigned female at birth) patients live with Endometriosis, yet most live their whole lives without a formal diagnosis or treatment. At the age of 23, I finally received life-changing excision surgery in addition to being diagnosed with Adenomyosis at the Center for Endometriosis Care in Atlanta, Georgia on June 10, 2021; a full decade after my symptoms initially began. This decade of dismissal and false diagnoses such as "hysteria" was the inspiration behind the title, “Miss Misdiagnosis”. 

I am forever grateful for my Endometriosis specialist that removed disease from seven organs and even discovered it in my respiratory, digestive, and urinary system. Unfortunately, it was a grueling journey to find the proper treatment. I even had to make the heartbreaking decision to take a 3 year leave from my undergraduate studies and teaching theatre arts therapy. I’ve spent most of my years hearing things from doctors like, “There is nothing that warrants your pain, the cause much be psychiatric”, “it’s just a bad period, every girl deals with this”, “you need to evaluate your mental health, you may have an eating disorder”, and was even blamed by a surgeon for being responsible for giving myself endometriosis from “self-examinations” and masturbation. 

I share my story as an artistic activist so those still waiting for a diagnosis, young girls missing out on their education, and all chronic illness warriors can empower themselves through credible information, positive self affirmations, and build meaningful connections. I use artistic photo editorial projects and community organizing, such as co-hosting the 2020 Austin Women’s March to form collaborations with like minded artists and convey my message with the world.