I have spent time with women from all walks of life and from all over this world. There are as many different stories as there are faces. Still, I see clearly that no matter what the degree of variation, we are all marginalized individuals. I am seeing only half of the human story play out on this global stage. Women's hopes and desires for the future of this world are not being enacted, are largely ignored, and more often than not, are brutally silenced. I want to live in a world where women can not only feel safe to walk down the street but also a world in which they can feel free to enjoy life in their own skin.

I dedicate my life's energy to bringing women together, as multifaceted and complex a group as we are.

It is essential to my mission as an artist to contribute my talents to non-profits and other community-based organizations. Headed by conscious people who try to instill in others the desire to effect transformative change, not-for-profit cooperatives serve as sites of social revolution and maintain objectives that are wholly consistent with my own: to lend a voice to the oppressed, the silenced, the ignored. Non-profit organizations also provide a forum that exists outside of the capitalist mainstream. Instead of financial gain serving as the driving force behind my projects, instead of introducing into my work any elements of the myopia that results when capitalistic forces consume creative space, I will offer my talents to the counterforce, to people with low budgets and big ideals.

I live in a democracy that offers me freedom of speech, and goddamnit, I am going to take that right and run with it.

I will continue to collaborate with those who advocate human potential.

I am also developing and working towards launching my own body of work. After publishing a series of books highlighting my photographic journeys, I would like to branch out and edit the raw moving footage that I have been shooting continuously for five years and counting.

The creative process is long and arduous, but it also is a venture within which momentum continually builds. I am excited for what is to come and will work until I arrive where I'm headed. When I'm there, well, I'll just work some more.

My work is what constitutes my whole life and has been a journey that has consumed every aspect of my being from as early as I can remember. My life is my art; art is my life. The line between the two has disappeared. Whether I am doing a crazy head-shot for survival cash or documenting the grandness of global peace movements, I am happy just to have a camera in my hand. I love the way that I see things, and I wish I could photograph every moment of my life. In truth, I would, and I have, but now I must stop to compile and bring forth that which I have already created.

As I grow into a greater awareness of the system of marketing my work and begin harvesting the fruits of my labor, I would like to open a gallery space that showcases women's photographic stories and facilitates workshops and free form/open mic/film screening exhibitions. The gallery will also serve as a chill space to grab a healthy, affordable bite of food during the day, and by night, the space will be transformed into a hot dance space. Foremost, the gallery will be a place where women can come together and have a meeting of the minds without sacrificing the element of play. This space will become known as an open forum where patrons can examine the realities that we face and address in life, but it also will serve as a venue where people can simply celebrate being alive. No matter where we are in the journey, there must be space for appreciation. My gallery will be just that.

My art exposes our struggles, highlights the warmth of our fiery cores and apologizes for neither. My art tantalizes the senses just as everything borne of woman does.

I want to be a spark.

Dark days surround us, and yet it only takes one flame to light up a room, one match to burn down a house, one fire to warm many. It is a time for resistance and rebirth.

The world is war-torn, her soils poisoned. There is a separation, a disconnect between cause and effect.

I believe that there must be unity if there is to be sustainable living, but it is important to remember that in breaching the divide, we must not fall prey to the American aphorism of "United we stand, divided we fall/You're either for us or against us."

We must work towards actualizing unity in diversity in a way we never have before. We must not only reclaim our history; we must also take on the task of not repeating it. We must now turn the wheel, shift the overall momentum because frankly speaking, I fear the trajectory of the mass appeal just as I do the 'leaders' that are stirring us towards what I believe to be a dead end.

My mission from here on out is to represent women through both my art and my actions. All of my photographic stories will focus on some aspect of the experience of womanhood. The vitality of this artistic endeavor lies in the fact that as a whole (and as a whole half of humanity) our authentic voices are rarely heard. When you do not hear your own voice, you cannot know who you truly are. When others don't listen to you voicing your story, how can there be any sense of democracy?

We live in a world that is completely out of harmony. I live in a world that is out of my control.

There is ancient wisdom as well as future hope; it is the yin and yang of the universe. There must be a large-scale shift if we are to regain balance. After all, it is a complex story.

When I speak of women, I know that beyond our biology, beyond a heart that feels and a mind that thinks, beyond a womb, beyond a multitasking cunt that bleeds and fucks, that is the soft and tender center of awe-inspiring sensation, that is a life-making tunnel, beyond these common denominators there are an endless number of variables that affect how we experience our female bodies.

From our environments to our belief systems — those which we claim as our own and those which are imposed upon us — each of us is uniquely targeted by a system that was designed to keep us all in place. Some of us worry whether we can afford health care while others scrape to afford natural alternatives to drugs. Many worry about being thin enough while millions others struggle to put food on the table for their children.

Those of us who choose to love other women as partners, both physically and spiritually, may view and experience womanhood through a lens that varies from that of those who choose to live heterosexually. Many of us love what we do, and many more hate what we do. Half of us are dying from a lack of meaning in our lives while the other half are dying from a lack of means. Sometimes it seems that we're faced with only two alternatives: Do we have to take to the streets as prostitutes or do we have to walk the corporate line?

We may all be women, but some of us wear the privileges of white skin, higher education and/or some semblance of a safety net. Some of us have been fighting the good fight for 70 years while others of us have not yet been up to bat.

There is no first, second or third wave of feminism; all women for all time have been engaged in the journey to maintain our rightful ground to live however we see fit and claim our birthright to exercise our freewill.

I like my vision of the world and I want to see substantial change in my lifetime. I am tired of being systematically dominated. It has been an ongoing struggle, and we have had achievements, made leaps and bounds, but we have yet to go the distance.

I know we will. I believe the time is now.