Connect What is your favorite type of art to create?

I create art that refuses to choose between the canvas and the microphone. I paint in acrylics bold, raw portraits of people in transition men learning to be gentle, women reclaiming their voice. And I write/perform spoken word that does the same thing with language: it strips a moment down to its truest line. My painting shows you what the silence looks like. My spoken word tells you what the silence was hiding.

Where do you find inspiration?

I find inspiration in the moments most people look away from. The quiet after an argument when nobody won. The space between who I was at 20 and who I’m trying to be at 27. I’m inspired by men learning to be gentle without going soft, by people who tell the truth even when their voice shakes. Cleveland gives me a lot rust-belt honesty, boarded-up buildings that still have light coming through the cracks. But mostly, I’m inspired by accountability

What would you do with $25,000?

$25,000 lets me stop choosing between rent and making real work. First, I’d fund a 6-month studio residency for myself .$8,000 for space, materials, and time to finish my series on ‘Gentle Men’ — acrylic portraits + companion spoken word pieces about accountability after harm. Second, $10,000 goes to production: recording, mixing, and pressing a limited run of the spoken word album so the work can live beyond my hometown $4000 community workshops young men in my hometown who thinks gentle= weak