Honors, Awards, & Scholarships:

2008                        Best Supporting Actress Bend Film Festival

2008                        Graduate Student Assistantship Scholarship

2008                         Student Employee of the Year Award, The University of the Arts

2007-2008            Howard A. and Margaret R. Wolf Scholarship

2007                        Welding Award, Sculpture Department

2007                        ACT 101 Scholastic Achievement Award

2006                        Presidential Leadership Team Player Award, The University of the Arts

2006                        Travel Award, The University of the Arts

2005-2006            W.W. Smith Scholarship

2004-2008            The University of the Arts Promising Artist Award

Conferences and Services:

2007                         Selected to present a workshop at the Regional ACT 101 Leadership Conference

                        Workshop on Multiple Intelligences & Creativity Through Teamwork

2004-2006            Selected to attend the National ACT 101 Leadership Conference

Organizations:

Member of National & Pennsylvania Art Education Association

Member of Marriage Equality USA

Current Artist Statement

     I believe education is at the foreground of any change in culture and society.  I feel it’s my duty to combine characteristics of myself together and give something to the community.  I strive to promote love, peace, and equality through the arts in any way I can. 

     My focus currently in graduate school is making a difference in the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (GLBTQ) community through art education.  My thesis paper is on redefining the definition of Multicultural Education as education on ethnicity, socioeconomic statue, gender, language, religion, sexual orientation, and geographical areas.

     I see art installation in galleries as a part of education because it promotes and reflects ideas on a wide range audience.   I majored in sculpture, primarily working with large-scale metals.  In the beginning my work reflected my own personal struggles with coming out.  They focused on the emotional internal problems.  Then, I moved toward the political aspects involving money, religion, nature, and sexuality.  There is a lot of hypocrisy that exist between and among those issues. 

   After making large metal for so long I’ve started to draw more.  Currently I am drawing and cutting; playing with the figure and composition to make dialog from figure to figure.  At the end I see an installation of a figures having dialog bouncing back from one another off walls, floors, and ceilings.  Most of the issues and conversations I am creating have to do with the GLBTQ community but could be applied in many ways to other situations.  They are both serious but comical.