Community art spaces have been the model for the world I want to build, the future I want to see. Throughout the years, I have intentionally sought out community art spaces because I feel like a better person when I actively participate in them. The impact goes beyond what I create and affects the ethos of why I create. 

If it weren't for community art spaces, I would have never shown my art to the world. In the years fresh out of high school, I was on a journey to find my place in the art world, and that path presented me with the opportunity to have a space in a communal art studio. Rather than just creating in isolation, I could share the air with people on their own creative journeys. I could be inspired by the successes and struggles of the artists in the adjoining studios. Being in that space is where I first opened myself up to show my art publicly. The Open Studio days were the first place I was formally an “Artist”. In that studio, I conceptualized and executed my first piece accepted into a juried art show. If I did not have this community space where I walked the halls with mid-career artists, I would have no model for what my place in the art world could look like. 

That space that I found as the ecosystem for my style of creative was the DIY arts scene. DIY art venues, zine festivals, and other independent artist-run spaces have been the spaces where I've felt the most empowered to be a creative. 

DIY art events have been a model to let me experience the world I want to see. These events that I have contributed to model radical accessibility, radical acceptance of differences, and radical expression. Spaces where everyone shows up intentionally allow everyone to stay present in maintaining the space. My artistic community has taught me how to radically show up. If everyone could show up for each other, we would see a more peaceful world.