I recently painted a big mural in Boston for LIFEWTR as a part of their program to build awareness for the need for more art education. I’m forever grateful to my high school art teacher for helping me realize that my work had merit and was worth pursuing. Up until high school I was sure that I was going to have a career in visual arts. That started to change when I started to realize that some of my classmates were able to draw more realistically than I was able to. At the time, I thought that meant I wasn’t “good enough” to continue on. My teacher helped me realize that realism wasn’t better, just a different thing. She explained that what I was doing was unique and had energy. She showed me different examples and artists and encouraged me to push on. It’s hard for me to imagine not being an illustrator at this point, I honestly can’t imagine doing anything else.