At The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, New York, my Scholastic Gold Key work titled, Toy Car, was part of the exhibition, Filling in the Gaps. In this exhibit were the works of New York City teens who received the highest regional recognition in the 2026 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards—the Gold Key Award. This year, 4,000 teens in grades 7–12 entered more than 17,000 works, representing 200 schools in all five boroughs. 

My goal with this image was to depict the childhood innocence of playing with a toy car, capturing the child's wonder as well as the physical connection many children have with objects. I chose to set the focus on the car as the core idea is to showcase an object that children all over the world play with, and the identity of the one playing with it is not the main focus of the piece.

To create this image, I lay down in front of the child in the same position one may lie to play with toy cars on the floor. I did this because I wanted my photograph to be taken from the perspective I was aiming to capture, rather than from above. A photo from above could convey a sense of power the viewer has over the child, which was not my intention.