My mother is the best mother in the world. Do you want to know why? because she has done everything in her power to guide me on a path to better my life, an opportunity she was never given. She comes from a home where everyone is divorced, her grandmother, mother, siblings, and step-siblings; she was no exception. My mother's father died from a complication after he got into a motorcycle accident. She was left without a father figure for a few years, and eventually, her mother remarried. The marriage looks like a silver lining, but it is not. She married an abusive man who treated her terribly because she was not his. She was smart though, she would never let him get to her. No matter what he said or did she knew that there was something better in life. But the question was, how could she get out of this house? My mother comes from a home that survived on food stamps, her mother, my grandmother, gave birth to her at sixteen. Her home was not a good home, they were drug addicts and alcoholics, and they suffered from depression and schizophrenia. In a home like that, it seems like there would be no home for the future. She worked hard, made top grades, and was eventually recognized for it. Her high school had a program that would allow them to work in the hospital as an internship, this is where she found her dream, she wanted to be a nurse and help others. She decided to go to college. She lives in poverty and thought she would never be able to go to college, but she was not going to let that stop her. She worked every job she could and applied for scholarships and grants, but she made it. She got accepted into college and earned her degree. During college she met this man at her church, he seemed nice and they got along great. They got married while she was still in college and eventually had a kid, me. He tried to be a father taking the kid fishing, and doing arts and crafts, but he was not cut out to be a father. He cheated on her, so she divorced him and took the child away from his bad influence. She was still in college and working multiple jobs to make ends meet, but she always took time for her child. she loved her very much and would do all she could to protect and bring her happiness. She got her degree and now she is a full-time nurse helping the elderly. She is still that same loving person who had to go through all those hardships. She has had to go through struggles and overcame all of them, she is my hero. She is the best mother in the world.

I was fed up with my life in high school and needed outreach to express my emotions in my religious oppressively school. I had never taken art seriously and saw it more as a hobby. I went to a religious boarding school that was not LGBTQ+ friendly, so there was no support in the struggle to figure out who I was. I was a female student who lived off campus and my girlfriend was a student who lived on campus, we are both art majors. We struggled our way through high school. Every day we would meet at the art club and do art together, this is how we were able to date in this oppressive school. This is what led me to be an art major, the arts allowed me to express my feeling in ways words never could. I thought I could help others in the best way I knew how, by creating art. My girlfriend was heavily into social media and that is how she showed her art to the world, she is a free spirit that has always loved art. I on the other hand had never had social media, not until my freshman year of college. I originally got it so I could communicate it, my girlfriend, more often, but then it turned into something more. I joined a few social media platforms, such as Instagram, Snapchat, and Discord. I found my communities and was able to make communities for others, I dedicated my platform to art and people struggling in the LGBTQ+ community. For the first time, I had a community of people who could understand me. LGBTQ+ people who could give advice and tell me I was not the only one struggling with these problems, people who I could share my art with and find meaning in them. I loved my newfound community and wanted to do something for them. This was the real turning point in my art. Before my art was about religious oppression and what that meant for future generations, and in some ways, it can still be seen that way. Now, I am focused on people struggling in unaccepting communities and that light that is found when you finally find people who can accept you. I want my art, from now and into the future, to inspire others who also feel oppressed. I want art to become a way to express themselves and bring relief to a struggling generation.