During the spring and summer, I had the privilege of helping Forbidden Fruit produce their second annual Root 2 Fruit festival, a free, all-ages creative wellness event, where I launched an intellectual property education initiative for artists!

But really, the story begins in the summer of 2024, when the University of the Arts (UArts), one of Philadelphia’s oldest art institutions, suddenly shut down. I was heading into my senior year, freshly appointed as the School of Art representative to our student government. Committed to advocating for my peers, I recognized that one of our biggest collective concerns was the lack of education around the legal aspects of being a working artist. We had no classes on intellectual property, no training on how to protect our work online, and no guidance on the legal realities we’d face once outside of school. So that summer I enrolled in a free IP law course offered by University of Pennsylvania. My goal was to return in the fall with the tools to create educational programming around the gaps students were identifying in their creative education. However, I would never get the chance. In June 2024, UArts closed with no warning to students or faculty. Overnight, my peers and I were left to figure out next steps alone.

Seeing a community I had grown to be a part of and care deeply for thrown into instability with few resources sparked something in me. I needed to do more. So I pivoted: instead of finishing my art degree, I applied to Drexel University’s Undergraduate Law program. I saw it as the perfect opportunity to continue the work I had started before UArts’ closure and put myself in a better position to one day bring much needed legal education to the artistic community.

Ultimately, Drexel is where I was introduced to Forbidden Fruit, a creative wellness company serving the very community I wanted to uplift. I was hired to be their Community Engagement Specialist, assisting with tasks such as sponsor acquisition and research. However, conversations with the company’s founders, Ty and Stonez, led to the position becoming so much more. Interning with Forbidden Fruit became a turning point. I realized this was a chance to bring my previous goals for student government full circle. I pitched the idea of an “Artists’ IP Guide” to my supervisors who gave me the green light not just to create the guide, but to develop festival programming around it too!

Designing the guide took a few days of wrestling with Canva (a website that now lives in my nightmares), but once I had a working draft, I quickly shifted into the community outreach phase. I started connecting with lawyers and legal professionals throughout the city, many of whom were excited by the initiative. I owe a tremendous amount of gratitude to the Drexel UGLaw program which helped me with marketing and introduced me to Professor Leahey, who provided thoughtful feedback and guidance as the project grew! With more legal professionals on board, the guide expanded to an in-person legal education pop-up at the festival. Ramón Urteaga of PatentXL and Jason Berger of Lewis Brisbois generously agreed to participate in an hour-long festival segment titled “Ask A Lawyer.”

On September 13th, 2025, everything came together. Root 2 Fruit attracted over 600 people to the Cira Green rooftop, and I raised enough funds to print and distribute the IP Guides for free. I watched the “Ask A Lawyer” segment come to life in real time, allowing space for creatives to ask legal questions and get answers on the spot. The impact didn’t stop there. We were able to launch a digital version of the IP Guide on the Forbidden Fruit website, where it remains free and accessible for all to download!

Interning with Forbidden Fruit and getting to have conversations with legal professionals across Philadelphia confirmed what I’ve known since UArts’ abrupt closure. Creative communities deserve more than the bare minimum. They deserve real infrastructure. The Root 2 Fruit festival was an amazing step towards building that, but just the first step of many. As I continue building a foundation in law with the support of Drexel’s incredible faculty, I’m committed to continuing this work, both as an aspiring lawyer and, always, as an artist.