“You are an artist. No matter what it is you create or how you create, as long as you're creating something worthwhile and that you enjoy doing and appreciate and it has some sort of significance in this world, that's meaningful.”
— Skylar Simmons
Today on the Good Folk Podcast we have the wonderful Skylar Simmons, an artist and zine creator from Clinton, North Carolina. Throughout high school and summers home from college, she created various public works for the city, ranging from murals and sculptures to a painted community piano. Skylar attended the North Carolina Governor’s School for art, which greatly influenced her interest in interdisciplinary collaboration. She recently graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of the Arts with a BFA in Painting and Printmaking and a minor in Art History.
Skylar moved to the Southern Pines area in January of 2021 with her partner, musician Sean Diesfeld and their dog, Freckles. Although she is trained as a fine arts painter, it has been the music community in the area that truly inspires her and helped guide her into graphic design and the launch of her art account, @PAPR.text on Instagram. There, she continues to help artists explore mediums, collaborate with others, and tackle DIY projects they may have thought were out of reach. Accessible art is highly important to Skylar, and has always been a part of why and how she creates.
In August, Skylar released S!Ck, a monthly zine project to promote the music and arts scene of the Southern Pines and Aberdeen area. S!Ck prides itself on accessible, creative, and thoughtful designs that bring people together to form stronger bonds within the community and grow the arts that define the culture of the Sandhills area.
This is a conversation about what it means to be an artist— who gets access, who gets training, and who gets to claim the identity for themselves. The arts have historically been an exclusive, contested realm, one that has long closed its doors to those who don’t fit the establishment’s ideas of what artists look like, or where they come from, or the kind of art they make. Especially considering the high concentration of museums in urban cities, how can rural artists find their voices and share their work with the world? Does one need formal training to claim artistry?
These are questions I have thought about for years, and I really appreciated Skylar’s thoughtful responses. We also discuss how art breeds empathy, and the ways in which DIY and local arts scenes can help one to realize what has been in front of them all along. There are places of value and worth everywhere you look; sometimes you just have to open your eyes and ask: who knew?
Good Folk is especially honored that we will be included in the September issue of S!Ck, dropping this week online and in person at local Sandhills businesses.
EP 7: Skylar Simmons