Artists I Admire - Keith Haring

A cliche inspiration, I know. However there's a reason this man and the artwork he produced is so universally loved.

Not only are his designs beautiful and sleek, but they also stand for so much. As an icon of the LGBTQ+ community Haring promoted and encouraged safe sex and awareness of AIDs, a sexually transmitted disease that was harming his community and in the end, took his life.

Despite being a heterosexual woman, I am a huge ally of the LGBTQ+ community due to growing up an an open family. I specifically remember sitting on the school bus in high school and being overwhelmed with a sense of disbelief after hearing another student say they would "Kill themselves if they woke up and found out their parents were gay". My mother at the time was engaged to another woman and I felt lucky enough to have been raised to support this; I couldn't imagine being so hateful towards something that didn't concern me at all. Luckily, times are changing and the world is becoming a lot more accepting, but this progress would have never been made if not for artists like Haring.

Art and activism go hand in hand, Haring perfectly represented this.