ARTIST STATEMENT

In the famous words of Ms. Erykah Badu "I'm an artist and I'm sensitive about my shit". I had just turned 20 two months before season auditions at UArts and I had just lost two people very dear to me and was still processing my grief. I felt extremely isolated and confused on where I was mentally, emotionally, and definitely spiritually. We had just finished callbacks for this show called In the Red and Brown Water with a director by the name of Kash Goins, this ultra laid back but super attentive to detail sort of man. I remember feeling so good after leaving that room. I didn't know if I would get called back or if I'd make it into any show but I knew if nothing else, I felt happy about the hours of work spent in that room. I knew there was something special about us and the work. I just wouldn't realize how much my new found family and how what lied ahead would change my life.
In February we started rehearsals and dove right into this world of Orishas and and explored Blackness in every shape you can imagine. I felt safe there, I think we all felt safe there. You see we had finally found some sense of feeling seen in our work, there was no hiding and no such thing as not making a conscious choice. I think it was refreshing for me, I was a Black woman playing a Black woman who I could relate to and that felt right. There wasn't ever a time that we all didn't find something new in our scenes to reimagine and work through. We were always inspired by each other. It was the first time a director truly trusted me with a script and once I knew that I was invincible. 
After a month of rehearsals we finally started getting excited to show the white institution that had ignored us in every way what we really had to offer....two weeks after we sold out every show and a global pandemic rocked the world. All of that raw uncut magic was destroyed in seconds. It got even worse after the end of sophomore year and we learned we wouldn't return back to school in the fall. I was terrified because who was I going to be as an artist now? The world was dying, my dreams were dying and so were people who looked like me. That Summer George Floyd was murdered and I was still alive shouting at the White House gates and getting rubber bullets shot at me. I remember crying to my mom because I felt like I was a part of a dying species and an unaccomplished artist who would never prove herself. But, my mother reassured me of two things, that I had fought for everything that I worked for and, if I couldn't find a seat at the table I'd build my own damn table.
And in those words I found that my perspective had shifted. I realized I wanted to create art no longer scrutinized by the western gaze. I as a Black woman and an artist want to create art that share the Black experience without re-traumatizing Black people. I want to redefine what it means to be a Black artist by using influences from some of the greatest artists in history like Zora, Alice, August,Toni and more. There’s always something to be said about the “Classics” and why they always work so, why not use them to explore the multifacetedness of the Black experience?
I am committed as an artist to make work that celebrates life as a unique and wavering journey but more importantly, I honor my commitment to Black art as there is no way to separate being a woman, being Black, and being an artist for me. I am three in one.