I have loved and been drawn to the arts my entire life - reading, writing, music, theatre, and illustration. As a high school senior facing impending graduation in 2001, I struggled to decide which of my many interests to pursue as a college major. I viewed each of them as individual activities I enjoyed; I did not yet recognize the underlying current that drew me to the arts collectively. 

At the encouragement of a guidance counselor, I deferred college enrollment to enlist in AmeriCorps and moved from a central Florida town to Indianapolis. I spent two years serving with the Peace Learning Center, teaching non-violent conflict management and communication skills to urban middle school students in a camp setting. Despite deep introversion, I quickly learned that I loved the small group discussions that arose in response to the material we introduced, and the insights and life experiences the students elected to share. I also enjoyed participating in the intentional creation of our program’s culture, with artifacts and rituals that not only imparted a sense of group identity and cohesion to students who had been randomly thrown together, but also provided additional outlets for students to express their values and share stories.

In 2003, I enrolled at St. Mary-of-the-Woods College to study music therapy. Here I first developed the language to articulate my love of the arts stemmed not solely from aesthetic appreciation, but from their value as tools in facilitating meaningful connection, communication, and relational development. 

A year later, I married, returned to Indianapolis, and transferred to Butler University. Following my second year of music study, I badly injured my voice. Realizing I could no longer pursue a career that relied upon it, I pivoted to another love - visual art. I enrolled for the first time at the campus then known as IUPUI and spent two and-a-half years focusing on communicative art and illustration at Herron School of Art & Design. It was during this time, while living in a couple of Indianapolis’ myriad food deserts, that I first experienced food insecurity, and I became increasingly aware over the coming years of many of the challenges urban residents face in accessing affordable, nutritious food.

At the start of 2009, I paused my academic pursuits to prepare for our soon-to-be-growing family. A friend from back home invited me to join an online writing group shortly after. Not only did I gain a new creative outlet to develop my voice, but I also gained in this digital enclave a community connection that helped offset the unexpected isolation of new motherhood. When I started making jewelry, binding books, and slowly returned to painting, these group members became my first customers, prompting me to open an Etsy shop, and remain one of my most treasured communities to this day.

In 2010, I re-entered the workforce to support my family’s financial needs. Desiring to return to non-profit work, I enlisted a temp agency to help with placement. Two months later, I was placed with Heritage Environmental Services. Although a for-profit corporation, I firmly believed in Heritage’s core mission and values, and spent nearly seven years there in an internal customer service role, developing professional communication as well as intra- and inter-departmental collaboration skills. I joined the company’s sustainability and community engagement committee, participating in Earth Day community rejuvenation projects and organizing and participating in volunteer opportunities with organizations providing food to the community, including Gleaners and Ronald McDonald House Charities. As leadership changed hands and the overall corporate culture shifted, I developed an interest in the ways culture and organizational power structures can either enhance or impair employee morale, productivity, interaction, and ultimately the organization’s bottom line. Noticing many of my co-workers skipping designated meal periods to catch up on work during this time of transition, I started an informal pantry for my team to keep them fed with ready-to-eat food items and shelf-stable microwavable meals. Shortly after, I worked with management to institute occasional building-wide potlucks that not only encouraged employees to meet their physical needs, but helped bolster inter-team communication, socialization, and morale as well. 

When Heritage moved to a new campus, I slowly transitioned my jewelry-making and book-binding hobbies into a full-time business. I researched and started developing skills in a variety of areas - building a cohesive story through product design and branding, social media account management, event planning, business permitting, taxes and bookkeeping, product photography, and search engine optimization strategies. I loved being able to connect with others through the stories imbued in objects I made, both in-person and on-line. 

Then in 2020, the COVID pandemic hit. Organic growth stalled as in-person venues and events shut down, many of which never re-opened. Creative work began to lose meaning once disconnected from developing community contact and relationship. I shifted focus to what helped my family remain connected to others during this period - troubleshooting Internet connectivity issues for an e-learning child, maintaining and repairing the computer and machines I used for work and general communication. I started learning html, JavaScript, and CSS, hoping to combine creative interests with digital communication. 

It was at the end of this period, in 2023, that an advertisement for a grant-funded IT certification program being offered through Clark University appeared on my Facebook feed. I applied, was accepted, and four months later successfully obtained my CompTIA A+ certification. While searching for employment, I quickly discovered that as much as I loved the hands-on engagement and problem-solving of machine building, repair, and hardware troubleshooting, I found the software and network troubleshooting roles employers were seeking to fill much less engaging. Nonetheless, the certification process showed me that after fifteen years since leaving college, I could still learn new and difficult things.

Equipped with this realization, I returned to what is now IU Indianapolis in 2024 to finish my undergraduate degree. Rather than choosing a particular artistic endeavor as a focus of study this time, I applied to the General Studies program so I could combine all my interests in pursuing that underlying current driving my love of the arts - communication, in its many forms and channels, as a tool for developing meaningful relationships and organizing collectives of people in pursuit of achieving positive goals. 

My journey to graduation has been long and meandering, but it has not been meaningless. Every path I explored along the way has given me deeper insight into who I am, what I value, what skills I possess, and sharper clarity for how the full sum of all my parts can positively engage with the larger environments to which I belong. During past periods of my life, I have donned the label of Artist, Musician, Thespian, Writer - titles that never quite seemed to fit right. Rather than describe who I am or even what I do, they merely articulated how I do them. As my current educational chapter comes to a close, I have a much deeper understanding of myself. I am someone who values beauty and excellence, particularly where it manifests as kindness, as well as curiosity and honesty; someone interested in artistic endeavours and realistic, hands-on work that connects me to community members in ways that mutually enrich us; someone whose strengths lie in empathy, adaptability, and forming deep relational connections. And while I cannot say for certain what my next chapter will bring, I am someone committed to learning and growing through every page I have left.