That’s how I came into art myself. Not through some clean, straight path, but through experience. Through movement between places. Through memory that doesn’t sit still. Mississippi is in me whether I’ve lived there or not. Chicago shaped how I see space, rhythm, pressure, survival. All of that shows up in the work. So when I teach, I’m not trying to shape people into some idea of what an artist is supposed to be, or what a “better person” is supposed to look like. I’m trying to get them to recognize that they already come with something. Something real. Something worth building from.

That is something I’ve come to understand, whether in teaching or in the studio. What sits beneath the surface doesn’t go away just because it’s covered. It remains active.