Art has always been a way for me to connect with other people — beyond just the communal practices of my own art-making: engaging in my peers' work, writing workshops, book clubs, looking at other artists for sources of inspiration — I truly believe that art can be a connective string from me to anyone. In my courses, I try to show my students that rather than viewing writing, or photography, or music as a task or chore that needs to be ticked off, they can view it as an extension of being. They can use art as a way of grappling with what upsets them or celebrating what they love most or use it to be silly or angry or nonsensical. It’s important to me to not pressure my students and alleviate the stress they feel to create new ideas and intricately woven stories. Audre Lorde said, “There are no new ideas, only new ways of having them be felt.” I believe everything is important even something as banal as going to the park and feeding a duck. There’s something here — in our everyday and ordinary lives that can touch and move people. I especially find myself passionate about bringing this belief of the quotidian as beautiful to marginalized and underrepresented students who have too often been told their art or the way they speak and move and think and love and act is wrong and un-special.