Katie is a glass and sculpture artist, who attended the Tyler School of Art and Architecture in Philadelphia. Katie built a diverse library of glass skills and material collections at Tyler. Although they did not know any career artists or glassblowers prior to their education in fine arts, they have been consistently interested in community values and building functional structures. As a child, Katie constantly created practical and decorative objects and helped repair their family’s home, taking pride in crafting as an act of giving and the interaction of kitsch in deteriorating environments. Katie has since found in their glass practice parallels between improving their community and the alluring connections of glass, crafting, and industrious materials. Through receiving scholarships to attend programs at Penland School of Craft, Pilchuck Glass School, and Corning Museum of Glass, Katie had the privilege to travel outside of Philly, where they lived with their family of seven. At these places, they learned the importance of working in diverse, supportive, communal hubs; and wants to work in an environment where they can help others assimilate in ways that they were supported as a queer person. Katie is participating in an art project focusing on the life of an intersex, migrant woman named Kea Tawana in Newark, NJ, who built a massive ark out of reclaimed building materials during the aids crisis and race riots.